The Panel on RTE 2

by Twenty Major on January 31st, 2005

I don’t tend to watch a lot of telly because I prefer to be social and spend time with my friends doing fun things, like drinking pints, drinking whiskey and eating food from the chipper before falling in the front door and getting to bed before I realise I need to vomit.

But last night, for circumstances I simply cannot reveal, I found myself at home with nothing to do but watch TV. So I saw the news and there was a bit of Spanish football on and you can’t really go wrong with football. Then I turned over to RTE 2 and got caught up in a strange programme called ‘The Panel’.

Basically what happens is the presenter and four others sit around and talk about the events of the week and make jokes and stuff like that. Well, I should clarify that. They sit around and try and be more zany than the last person to talk. The presenter is a big fat man, I don’t know his name, who labours under the assumption that all fat people are jolly and funny. Then there were three men, one of whom looked like Liam Brady (and he was the best of them, making a number of quite good jokes), some cunt from Norn Iron who was about as funny as Frank Carson and Jimmy Cricket’s offspring and another sort of tubby bald bloke wearing a zany shirt because he was so zany only a zany shirt would do just in case you didn’t realise how zany this zany man was.

There was also a woman called Geri Mae who I’ve never heard of either. Should I have heard of her? Does anyone know who she is or what she does? If so please leave a comment and let me know.

So they brought on a couple of guests. Some girl who I’ve never heard of, I think she might be going out with one of the gayers from Westlife, and that curly haired gardener bloke who seemed like a nice fellow and he looked kind of sheepish at being surrounded by such eejits. Now, you can correct me if I’m wrong but I thought comedy shows were supposed to be funny. This show was about as funny as having your eyeballs punctured by hot knitting needles (those one or two gags by Liam Brady apart). Has nobody told them? Can nobody do something about this? Can’t some cunt start a petition? Maybe we could use that fat presenter bloke as food for Tsunami victims. He’d keep most of Indonesia in meat chunks for the rest of the year.

Typical moment: Presenter tells a story about a man being fined for playing the Riverdance CD too loud in his car. Norn Iron cunt goes off on one about how hilarious it would be if he had four tiny children doing Riverdance on a plank of wood in the back seat. ‘That’d really freak the cops out’ he says before going into a spastic head moving version of Riverdance himself. Keep taking the Ritalin you witless pissbag.

Anyway, suffice to say I won’t be watching TV again in a hurry. Thanks, The Panel, for confirming my long-held belief that I’m better of slowly destroying my liver than staying in of an evening.

Always say ‘please’

by Twenty Major on January 28th, 2005

Despite him being a bus driver and an erstwhile colleage of the cunt who drove past me a few weeks back I feel I should point you in the direction of this rant by The Busman. It’s good stuff.

I particulary liked this bit ” I wanted to crush him between the bus and a nearby wall but thought better of it.”

There just hasn’t been enough time since the last wall crushing, eh Bussy?

Fucking Judge cunts

by Twenty Major on January 28th, 2005

I have to say I agree with the sentiments of Potato-man when he expresses incredulity at the measly four year sentence handed down to utter cunt Paul Buckley who savagely raped and beat a woman in Cork in April 2002.

He plead not guilty in court which meant the lady in question had to testify and relive the experience. Then the fucking cunt judge gives your man four years? Maybe there was some kind of kindred spirit thing going on. Two absolute cunts give each other the eye. They both can see one is as big a cunt as the other and old fucking cunt judge goes easy.

If it were me that cunt would be doing as much time as possible and with bollocky shit like this going on week after week after week in Ireland I think it’s time we explored the possibility of some other forms of justice being administered to cunts like that. How many times have we seen child abusers, kiddie porn merchants, rapists, violent burglars and other forms of pond scum get half-arsed sentences from judges so far removed from the real world it’s just not funny?

See that Buckley cunt? Maximum sentence and let’s get someone to beat and rape him. Seriously. See how he fucking likes it. Doesn’t the bible say ‘An eye for an eye?’ I know it also says ‘Do unto others as you would have done unto yourself’ but he’s already done unto others and now it’s time someone did unto him back. Let’s get some 7′5″ giant of a man with a cock like a super-inflated python, give him the job of National Punishment Rapist and have him violate the arses of these bastards. Won’t be doing much raping now, will you, fucker? Won’t be sitting down or pooing straight for a couple of weeks either but who cares about you? Not me. You gave up your rights when you did what you did in the first place.

You might think I’m joking but I’m deadly serious about this. Child-abuser? Castration without anaesthetic. Simple as that. Rehabilitation my bollocks. If you do it once you’d do it again. Cut your knackers off and nobody has to worry anymore. It might act as a bit of a deterrent too. I mean, does a guy who’d fuck a kid really have any fear of going inside for a number of years where he’s going to spend as much time as possible playing wanking games and bumming his cell-mates whenever he feels like it? I don’t think so. If he thinks he might lose his balls he might just stay at home and use the internet and large butt-plugs to get his thrills.

Violent criminals? Let’s get violent back. Beat somebody up because you’re pissed and bored? Well, let’s tie you to a tree and have about you with baseball bats. Bottle somebody for looking at your bird in a nightclub? Let’s send you down but sew your eyelids open so you go mad from lack of sleep and tear your own eyes out. Batter an old aged pensioner to steal their life savings of €37 when you could just scare them into giving you the money? Then we’ll break all the bones in your feet and make you walk all the way there to give the money back. Then once you’ve done that we’ll break your legs and deny you hospital care - and if I see you crawling along the road I’ll fucking do you for vagrancy too you poxy little shitbag.

When you have clueless cunts for judges like we have in this country you need an alternative. The people of Ireland are being denied justice, the criminals aren’t worried. It’s a cushy number in jail, bed, board, heroin and anal sex. It’s like Soft Cell in the early years. It’s about time it stopped.

So what should the political party be called? The Retribution Party? The Revengist Democrats? All suggestions welcome.

11 things I’ve discovered about Dublin

by Twenty Major on January 27th, 2005

On my ambles around our fair city I’ve seen many things, viewed many people with suspicion and discovered a thing or two about the people who live here. Here’s what I found out:

- Despite purporting to be starving and dirty beggars don’t like anything but money to be dropped into their cardboard cups. They do not appreciate it when you try and be practical and cram the last few of your Burdocks chips and a sachet of Jurys Hotel shower gel in there.

- Security guards in clothes shops on Liffey Street will not act as your personal bodyguard. They will also try and remove you from the shops when you try on underwear and then parade down to the front of the shop to ask them what they think of the fit.

- Police horses don’t like it when you shove a carrot up their hole.

- Throwing a fully clothed mannequin into the Liffey at night then yelling ‘Oh my God! Somebody’s in there and they’re drowning!!’ nearly always results in somebody calling the police.

- Nobody wants to sit next to you on the bus if you’ve got a carrier bag full of fish on the point of going off which you’re about to sell to your local Chinese restaurant.

- Calling up 98FM and saying “Can I make a request, please?” and then saying “I request you shove that Phil Collins record under your foreskin you wanker” nearly always results in the person on the phone hanging up without saying ‘goodbye’. How rude.

- Taxi drivers are broken up into two specific groups. Those who don’t mind Eamon Dunphy and those that hate him so much they’ll stop talking to you unless you hate him as much as they do.

- 97% of all people who work in Centra convenience stores are Asian of some kind. “Hello, give me twenty Major, please,” you’ll say. “Flied lice wi’ tha’?” they answer.

- Unless it’s very busy, like Henry Street at Christmas time, it’s very difficult to trip people up and get away with it.

- It’s nearly impossible to climb The Spire after 15 pints in Mulligans. Nearly.

- There’s a secret door into the old Carlton cinema on O’Connell Street and Dublin’s high society meet there on a weekly basis to have orgies like in that film with Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. No, not the racing car one, the one wear they all wear masks and fellate each other in vast rooms of red velvet. I once saw Gavin Lambe-Murphy being rimmed by Eddie Irvine (although Irvine admitted to me later he thought he was with Deirdre Barlow from Coronation Street).

So there you go. 11 things about Dublin. This is likely to be an ongoing series, so check back soon.

Finally for today I’d just like to say that the ridiculously poor feedback to my wonderful punning yesterday has not gone un-noticed, you bastards.

i REMember U2 in Croke Park

by Twenty Major on January 26th, 2005

So U2 are going to play Croke Park again. I was there many years ago, 1985 I think it was. I stayed near the middle of the crowd. I didn’t want to go right up the top because my mother always told me not to get to close to the edge.

The support bands that day were In Tua Nua, the Welsh version of Big Country who were called The Alarm, Squeeze and REM. Back then REM weren’t anywhere near as well known as they are now and after their slot the band came down and mingled with the crowd to take in the rest of the gig.

I was in a queue for the toilets when I spotted Michael Stipe wandering around looking for someone to talk to. Most people were avoiding any kind of eye contact with him whatsoever and I felt a bit sorry for the geeky young singer so I gave him the nod and we soon fell into deep conversation. I grabbed a couple of beers and hotdogs (yes, he was a vegetarian back then but he’s always liked a nice sausage) and he told me all about his plans for the band.

He said he wanted to write the perfect pop song but not sell out to ‘the man’. He wanted his lyrics to retain their poetic mystery and curious pentameter but still be accessible to the common man. He told me he’d had Peter Buck kidnap English professors from local universities and they had them held captive in the band’s underground studio in Athens, Georgia, poring over his latest lyrics. He even said he’d once travelled to the deepest South American jungles and after smoking some local plants had been told how to write the perfect middle eight by an ancient talking condor named Aubrey.

I couldn’t help but be impressed. We talked for nearly two hours, sipping our brews until all of a sudden Michael’s face went puce. I thought he was choking on his foot-long but I turned around and saw actor John Thaw. What could be the problem, I wondered.

I was about to ask Stipey when I saw a trickle of liquid hit the ground. Michael Stipe was wetting himself in front of me. How embarrassing, not just for me, but for him as well. Now people were beginning to notice. Whatever the problem was between him and Thaw it would have to wait. I had to do something to help my new chum conquer his fear.

“Michael,” I said grabbing him by the shoulders. “Pull yourself together man. There’s only one way to stop this. You have to look straight into his eyes and realise that he’s just a man. Whatever it is that makes you frightened is some kind of highly irrational fear and if you can beat it now you’ll beat it forever.”

He looked at me, whimpering slightly. I could see him trying to control his bladder. What could I do? I had to say something decisive, so I slapped him in the face and blurted out:

“Stand in the place where you piss. Now face Morse.”

It seemed to do the trick and he pulled himself together quite quickly.

“Thank you, Twenty” he said. “I’ll never forget this, your kindness, your help in making me face my demons.”

Although I never saw him again I heard he often tells the story of how a grey-bearded gentleman from Dublin helped him write one his breakthrough hits. But did I get a song writing credit?

Did I bollix, the baldy cunt.

The time I saw Bono

by Twenty Major on January 25th, 2005

It was many years ago and I was walking down Leeson Street at about 4am.

Coming towards me I saw a teeny-tiny person wearing oversized sunglasses. ‘I recognize that face’ I thought to myself as he passed me by. I walked on a few steps and then realized ‘Hey, that’s Bono!’

So I turned around and looked at him walking down the street. Then I got a taxi home.

Have you ever had such an incredible brush with fame? My brother says he once saw Luka Bloom’s winkle when he was standing next to him at a urinal in The Bailey whilst I know a friend of a friend whose sister was set upon by Mick Hucknall one night but when he wouldn’t go away she kicked him in the balls and made him cry.

These so-called megastars are not all they’re cracked up to be, really.

On another note I wonder how former minister Ray Burke is getting on in prison today. I’d imagine there are plenty of other politicians nervously shredding files and burning documents as at last we take something back from the despicable cunts who have been fucking us up the arse for years.

Have fun in the showers you thieving prick.

Gah, stupid bastard thing.

by Twenty Major on January 21st, 2005

I just wrote a fantastic piece about George Bush and Blogger ate it. I smell a rat.

All I can really remember is my killer first line: “Like a female prisoner refused parole the world will have to suffer four more years of Bush”.

Anyway, it was all about what an absolute cocksucker he is and it ended with me hoping he had a stroke on the golf course so he’d be a bigger vegetable than he is now.

There were a ton of great gags in there. I had all the material, Iraq, Osama, oil, Guantamo Bay, explosive diarrhea from drinking too much Guinness and why Eartha Kitt is now working for the Bush administration under the assumed identity of Condaleeza Rice. It’s a terrible loss to the world and quite frankly it was so scathing, barbed and powerful it might have brought down his government before his second term really got underway. Nice one, Blogger.

===========

Was looking at the Unison.ie site (registration required) and there was a story about a traffic warden in Cork who got attacked and hit on the head with a lump hammer after giving someone a ticket. I know it’s terrible but I had to laugh at the ad they had placed right beside the story - picture here.

Help the little children

by Twenty Major on January 20th, 2005

I see Barnardo’s has launched a long term plan to make Ireland “the best place in the world to be a child” by 2016. They say too many children live in deprivation and squalor, but what are these kids doing about it?

Nothing. That’s the answer. They sit around in their dirty clothes but would they ever think of washing them themselves? No. They say they’re hungry but would they forage in the woods for the fruits of the earth? My arse they would.

The problem with kids these days is they’re just not willing to work. They expect to go to school, to get fed, to get Playstations and bikes and games but what do they do to earn it? God be with the days when we’d use old socks rolled up together to make a football and we’d spend hours and hours playing with it. Nowadays if it’s the not the official Nike Premiership ball the kids are moaning. Well I for one say it’s time to stop. In the olden days children were chimney sweeps and mine workers. What about the kids who are gainfully employed by huge multinationals in their far-eastern sweatshops? Do you hear them moaning and complaining that they don’t have Half-Life 2 or an iPod? No, they’re too busy earning a living to worry about things like that.

It’s about time they got back to work and stopped their moaning and looking for handouts - but what sort of jobs could they do in these modern times? Here are a few suggestions:

Police: Yes, I know we have a police force already who are among the best in the world when it comes to truncheoning the heads off crusties who march around with nothing better to do, but how often have we heard the question ‘But who will police the police?’ Talk about a gap in the market. Come on kids, sort it out.

Dwarf stand-ins: Think about how difficult it must have been for George Lucas to find all the dwarves he needed to play the Ewoks in Return of the Jedi. Looking in caves, under bridges, inside the dry-walls of old houses and all the other places where dwarves grow must have been a pain in the arse. He could have just used kids. Come on kids, get an actors union together and put an end to dwarves evil reign in Hollywood once and for all.

Kitchen staff: How many times has a chef gone to his reach-in to pull out whatever ingredient he needed only to come out with a piece of Filet Mignon instead of the striped bass he was looking for? Children could climb inside the reach-in, have something like a miner’s helmet to help them see and the chef can just call out what he’s looking for. The kid would then scurry around inside and hand the chef what he’s looking for. The beauty of this is that you could pay the kids less than you would the Peruvian dishwasher and Equadorian line cooks.

School yard referees: Remember when you were a kid and you played football in the school yard? Remember the times when the ball would go over the pile of coats used as the goalpost and had it been a real pitch the ball would have hit the post and come out? And remember how there was always one cunt on the other team who’d say it was a goal and a big row would break out? Well, if these poor kids could act as referees then that would solve the problem once and for all. The referee’s decision is final and the mini Collinas (you’d have to shave them bald) would be soaking up the eductional atmosphere by working in a school. It’s an all round winner.

Mole killers: What is the point of the mole? Nobody knows. All we know is that if you get moles on your golf course you can kiss your snooker table greens goodbye. However, if moles knew that an invasion of Royal Dublin meant the crack team of mole killers, sent to burrow through their tunnels to wipe them out, would be after them you can be quite sure they’d stay off the fucking grass. Yes, some of these kids would die a horrible death, trapped far underground, wedged in so tight they can’t move forwards or backwards, but it’s a dangerous business. The risks are high but the rewards are great.

So you see it doesn’t take much to make Ireland a great place for kids again. It’s in your own hands little ones. Are you going to sit around and starve or are you going to do something about it?

Blog etiquette

by Twenty Major on January 20th, 2005

Is it bad form to single out a blog and rip the piss out of it for its utter lack of anything interesting, its keeper’s hapless and witless use of the English language and it’s all round uselessness?

I’m a bit torn about it actually. Dubloon was obviously an easy target because he was posting inflammatory stuff and then turned off his comments so there was no right of reply but this is kind of different. The blog in question is possibly the worst, or best depending on how you look at it, example of the ‘Had a grand time this weekend, took the dog for a walk, bought a new book, I have nothing to say but I’m filling paragraph after paragraph with vapid hogwash anyway’ blog I’ve ever seen.

It’s comforting, and strangely entertaining, to know that there are people out with lives so banal that buying the new Phil Collins CD is worth telling people about. The worst thing is this blogger’s obvious belief that they’re different, witty and worth reading and not tedious, insipid and about as interesting as Ronan Keating.

So is it against blog etiquette to link to it and take the piss?

While you’re considering that please doff your cap to Gavin who’s got the Joe Duffy - Martin Cullen - Monica Leech - cocksucker clip on his site. Well played, sir.

Dublin criminals

by Twenty Major on January 19th, 2005

I’m sure you’ve all heard of Dublin’s top criminals. The General, Martin Cahill, plagued police with his nefarious deeds and Mickey Mouse underpants for years, while The Viper, Martin Foley, is currently trying to take legal action against The Sunday World for being a badly printed, unreadable rag.

But what about the lads who never made it? The ones who tried to stake their place in Dublin’s underworld and failed. Let me fill you in…

The Swan: Nicknamed because of his inordinately long neck this crook made a good start to his career selling cannabis and ecstasy around Dublin clubs in the mid-90s. It all went wrong when he decided to expand into the drugs manufacturing businesses and when Gardai intercepted a consignment of 60,000 poppies from Afghanistan his story that they were for English people in remembrance of World War II couldn’t save him from 14 years inside.

The Dolphin: So named because of his high-pitched voice he worked the mean streets of Drumcondra gaining a reputation as a hard man after he allegedly bit a rival’s hand off. The legend has it that after a fight over territory the rival was tied up in a warehouse and The Dolphin spent 45 minutes gnawing through bone and flesh to remove the hand in question. He demanded protection from local shopkeepers but mysteriously went missing after going into his local Sinn Fein office to demand tribute.

The Adder: He was debt collector and loan shark with an uncanny ability to know how much anyone owed him at any time. He could even calculate the compound interest his loans would generate for up to 30 years in advance in seconds. He managed to stay clear of the Gardai by running a kebab shop on Dorset Street but he was merciless when it came to getting his money. Three days late with a payment? You got a beating. A week late and you were going to lose a finger or two? Two weeks late meant one of your limbs would go to feed his pet piranha (which he kept in a giant tank in his Castle Street apartment) and he’d behead anyone who was more than three weeks late with a payment.

Although this was designed to put fear and terror into people so they wouldn’t default it became obvious that people who had been beaten to shite and had limbs removed in non-surgical situations found it very difficult to raise the necessary funds to pay The Adder back. When his last customer was dead he went out of business and now drives a taxi.

The Rhino: His real name was Larry Ryan so it’d be fair enough if you thought his nickname came from a clever play on his surname but that’s not it. Born with an unfortunate afflication which left him with a massive erection 24 hours a day he was known as The Rhino because of his big horn. He had links to Italians who owned a series of nightclubs on Leeson Street and The Rhino was their front. He’d supervise the delivery of vast consignments of drugs and olive oil until he decided to go into business for himself. He was overheard saying “Those wop cunts can kiss my rock hard langer”. Unfortunately for him the person who heard him was the head of the notorious Fusciardi crime family who ensured The Rhino’s feet were encased in concrete as hard as his John Thomas and fucked him into The Liffey just outside the Point Depot. How do I know this? Let’s just say I worked in the concrete business and I was the one who concreted his feet.

The West Highland White Terrier: Quite patently doomed from the start because of his name this Scottish albino arrived in Dublin in the late 80s and set about burlging houses then fencing the goods back to Scotland where they couldn’t be traced. His hallmark was robbing a place then leaving one of those white dog poos that you just don’t see any more on the victim’s carpet. When the white dog poo finally ran out (where did those dogs go anyway?) he’d leave a stool of his own and colour it white with Tippex. Sadly this coincided with the birth of DNA testing and The West Highland White Terrier was caught, almost literally, with his pants down sporting a turtle’s tail.

There are more but I think I’ll leave those for another day.