the clash of civilisations

 A phone call from Yankee Joe.

Our talk ranges.

"Do you know Graham Linehan?" the Yank enquires at some stage.

"You mean the Cork man to whom the BBC gave mllions so that he might present an unwatchable chat show just because they thought he was attracted to people of the same gender as himself only to discover that everyone in Cork talks that way and that Graham is actually by Corkonian standards the ultimate macho man, in effect the Arnold Schwarzeneggar of Cork?"

"No I mean the guy who writes comedies. I presume you're talking about Graham Norton. I'm talking about Graham Linehan."

"Who he?"

"He's only the man responsible for some of the best TV comedies of the past thirty years."

"Such as?" I venture, fascinated that Graham Linehan could be off my radar having created Seinfeld, Friends and the Larry David Show.

"Black Books, Father Ted, and The IT Crowd," clarified the cousin. "All of them sheer comic gold."

"Ah Cousin," I remonstrated, more in sorrow than in astonishment at his lack of taste. "A great gulf opens up between us. It's like when I'n talking to the Brigadier about Israel. It's not just that we disagree. It's that we're on entirely different planets. Sheer comic gold? No, no, surely not. Sad post modern cyncial joyless drivel more like. But why do you bring up the immortal Linehan? You'r not just sticking it to me, are you?"

"He's been cancelled," explained the Yank. "He wrote something critical of transgenderism on a website and, boom, he lost everything: his marriage broke up; his friends don't want to know him; he can't get work in television. He'd been concerned about transgenderism because he feared the cultural promotiion of it might affect his own daughter. Can you believe he could lose everything at a stroke?"

"All for stating the truth about mutilating sex change operations which don't work, eh?" I mused, "But isn't there an irony here? I mean he played a not insignificant role in creating the present collapse in common sense societal moral values which has led to sex change operations and cancel culture. And he did it through the very comedies you love. I'm suggesting that the anodyne conformist sleazoid trash with which he cluttered up the airwaves on behalf of the amoral BBC and deparaved Channel Four, has led in a linear fashion to cancel culture itself. Now he's hoist on the monstrousness of the anti life anti Christian bigotries he himself fostered, Petard I mean."

"Jean Luc Petard?"

"No. Hoist on his own petard."

"Aw Heelers. You gotta have some sympathy for the guy."

"Actually Joe," I said ruminatively, "for the first time I think I'm starting to see a bright side to cancel culture."

a long overdue tribute to author broadcaster journalist photographer poet blogger and all round humanitarian brian byrne

 

One of my dogs went missing earlier this week.

Unbeknownst to me a delivery man at Supervalu shopping centre noticed the dog wandering on Main Street and brought her to the Guards, the Irish police force.

The Guards notified Brian Byrne that they had a lost dog in their possession.

Brian Byrne put a photo of the dog on his Kilcullen Diary website.

Kindly neighbours recognised her and phoned me.

The police had the dog back at my house two and a half hours after she first went missing.