haircut 100

 

Sitting in the chair preparatory.

The barber flourishes a scissors.

"No need for a face mask," sez he cheerily, "I've been vaccinated. Two full shots."

Will I say anything?

Is there anything to be gained?

What is the point?

What's it all about Alfie?

Etc etc.

And he has a scissors.

I don't want him to get snippy.

Maybe I should wait till after the haircut is done.

"You know what the vaccine is made of?" I enquire.

"Oh I suppose they make it out of stuff in some laboratory," sez he.

"They do," I affirm. "They do make it out of stuff. They make it out of unborn babies murdered by abortion. All the vaccines are either made out of murdered children or tested on cells harvested from murdered children. They get the unborn babies and club em over the head like baby seals. Then they stir up the remains in a potion and feed it to the masses for cash money boss."

There is a silence.

Presumably awkward for him. But not for me.

I wait.

"That's not true," he announces at last.

I smile fondly.

The That's Not True response.

Always good for a larf.

"Soylent Green is people," I tell him.

You shudda seen the haircut he gave me.

idylls of summer

 

Sitting near the lake.

All is still and evening and late gold from the setting sun.

Presently I hear a matronly voice in moderate distress exclaiming: "You go away. Go away now. Go on. Get away."

The voice is high with prim self parodaical outrage.

What on earth.

Is someone being attacked?

I move forward quickly.

My eyes meet an odd scene.

A woman of mature years is berating XT the swan, who is sitting on the lake, not bothering anyone.

The woman begins to edge out onto the dry part of the weir to get closer to him.

All the while she keeps up a commentary directed at XT: "Get lost you. Go away. Go away."

She begins to swing a handbag at his head. The handbag is on a long leather leash.

"Go away. Go on. Get away."

XT moves a little bit away.

He is anxious to stay at this location because he knows Bob and Grace swan sometimes try to sneak onto the lake with their seven babies using an underground stream from the lake across the road which emerges here.

XT rules the middle lake and the third lake and he doesn't allow Bob and Grace and co to linger here.

The woman of mature years is still swinging her handbag, having let the leather strap out to its full extent.

I find the scene most quaint.

I hover a bit and let her see me doing some stage business with the dogs just in case she's tempted to really bean the swan.

Seeing me, she inches back along the weir and departs.

Not for the first time I am struck by the queer infundibularities that gild the majoram of every day existence.

the mask of zorro i mean heelers (he makes the sign of the h)

 

Morning.

Checking a computer.

Here's larks.

The computer informs me that someone has accessed an article on my website from ten years ago about parliamentarian Martin Heydon.

Who'd be reading that?

There's two people I hope it isn't.

The police.

And Martin Heydon.

I drive to Newbridge.

The parking machines in the public carpark are out of order.

I'm not inclined to risk a He Said, She Said, We Said, They Said with the clamping company.

So I avail of the only free parking in town outside Martin Heydon's office.

In a cafe the proprietor asks me where I parked.

Rather guiltily I reply: "I parked outside Martin Heydon's office. I always feel a bit guilty parking there because I haven't been a supporter of his. Not that my lack of support has hurt his political career. And then there's an old article I wrote where I was musing about putting graffiti on his office to wit: Fine Gael Nazis Out. That old gag. I was trying to warn people at the time that Fine Gael were going to legalise abortion. But enough about me. Tell me about yourself."

"Me and my boyfriend have just got back to Ireland," she said apropos of nothing at all. "And I quite like Martin Heydon. When I got back here, the Department of Social Welfare didn't want to know me. They wouldn't give me the increased Covid payment for Job Seekers. They were saying: You haven't worked here. And I was saying: Yeah but I'm from here. Martin Heydon was the only one who gave me any help in getting it sorted out."

When I return to my car I notice that there has been some fresh graffiti at Martin Heydon's office.

That is to say someone has placed stickers over the parliamentarian's face on two outdoor posters of him which the office displays.

Fine Gael obviously feels Martin Heydon is a good looking man because there are actually no less than five images of him positioned around the exterior precincts of this office when you include the large near life size pair facing in both directions on a sign at the  street entrance to the parking area.

The large ones are like something from a slapstick version of George Orwell's 1984, with the parliamentarian grinning goonishly at the passers by.

The eyes seem to follow you into the carpark.

"Big Brother Is Watching You And He Finds You Terribly Amusing," and all that.

Spooky.

Two out of the three smaller facial images on the wall of the main office are presently obliterated by stickers.

Some restraint there by the graffiti artists.

If it was me I'd obliterate the lot.

The first graffiti sticker covering a Martin Heyon physog, reads:

"The Media is the virus."

Well I heartily approve of that.

The second sticker covering a Martin Heydon physog, advises "Present data indicates that outdoor face masks are now and always have been completely unnecessary."

The rest of it has been torn away by some vandal.

Yes.

Some vandal has vandalised the graffiti.

It's unholy.

But the basic message about face masks on the second partially vandalised sticker would get another two thumbs up from me.

A thought strikes.

Do the cops and the parliamentarian think I'm leaving these things?

Surely they know my style by now.

I never publish anonymously.

Not even graffiti.

And I never leave the job two fifths done.