That’s all folks.

Real life means I’ve got no time to do the blog the way I want to do it anymore and I think it’s better to announce it than let it fade away.

Thank you to all the readers and contributors. I know there’s a nice little community here but maybe it’ll re-emerge somewhere else. If it does, let me know. Thank you to all the interesting, intelligent and decent people who have spent time on here down the years. I’ll miss the chat and the laughs but that’s life.

The forum, that’s closing too. I don’t have time to manage it or wrestle it back from the place it’s in right now. Those of you who took part and didn’t blunderbuss your way through it, making it less tolerable than a Damien Rice fingering, thanks.

Take it easy, I wish those of you who aren’t total cunts all the very best.

My thanks to Slab and Conor who both sent me a pic of the speeding van which has found itself in a spot of bother on Pembroke Road this morning.

Sweet as sweet can be.

You may have my €80 and my two points but you’ve … erm … been temporarily clamped. You can use my money to pay for it.

Truly it is the circle of life.

I was in Fish Bar the other day. Getting fish. And some chips. And tasty it was too.

However, that’s not the point. The point is this young lad called Karl came in. I know his name was Karl because his mate called him Karl. And because he had the name Karl tattooed on the side of his neck, in a font that can only be described as a cross between Times New Roman, something really gothic and Comic Sans.

I’m not a fan of tattoos really but I can understand why people might want them. I struggle to understand anything above the neckline, however, and certainly not your own name.

Is it there in case your forget? You wake up one morning and think not only ‘Where the fuck am I?’ but ‘Who the fuck am I?’

‘Let me look in the mirror. Hurrah! I am Karl. Take that memory’.

Also, it struck me that this young man might very well be the kind of young man who might possibly engage in behaviours in which it would be best if nobody knew your name. Having it scrawled across your neck is not a good idea. Unless this was his way of avoiding a life of crime, knowing that he would have to kill every witness, ever, if he did do something bad.

Then, earlier, I stopped at Leonard’s Corner and crossing the road there was a bloke with his name on his neck. I couldn’t make it out because it was garnished with a giant angel’s wing. Just the one wing mind.

Anyway, my point is, neck tattoos. No. Especially ones with your own name.

The TV licence fee annoys me. It didn’t used to as much as it does now but I have many great objections to it.

Firstly, the TV licence money goes to a commercial organisation, not one like the BBC who remain ad-free.

Secondly, my payment contributes to the wages of many people who do good work in RTE but also contibutes to Ryan Tubridy and Brendan O’Connor. I object strongly to this. It takes approximately 2500 licences to pay Tubbers’ salary.

Thirdly, if RTE gets some of the revenue then so should all the other TV stations. It’s only fair.

Fourthly, I can’t remember the last time I watched Irish TV, let alone TV at all. I caught a bit of Reeling in the Years the other night, which is always worth a watch, but apart from that I haven’t watched anything. Not even the news.

Fifthly, it’s €160 I could spend better at this moment in time.

Sixthly, before my last licence had even expired they had sent me a ‘final demand‘, red writing and all.

Seventhly, well, I don’t know. I just wanted to use the word ‘seventhly’.

Eighthly, see above.

Ninthly, Joe Duffy.

Tenthly, the idea that you are required to have a licence for a piece of technology that you have spent hundreds of euros on is, when you step back and think about it, more ludicrous than Jesus. Even if you never, ever watch TV and use it as a computer monitor or for your xBox or just DVDs you have to pay this fee.

It’s stupid and instead of having a two day Dail debate about the Moriarty Tribunal which will result in nothing happening to anyone outlawing this nonsensical TV licence should be on the agenda.

I bet Ming agrees.