Nick Leeson’s career change

by Twenty Major on April 18th, 2005

So the man who brought down Baring’s Bank has now got a new job as commercial manager of Galway United Football Club. Sounds like a marriage made in heaven, doesn’t it? He can use his wisdom and knowledge of the markets to invest the club’s money in futures and bonds and soon they’ll be able to finance signings like Ronaldo, David Beckham and Gary Breen.

It put me in mind of some other career changes people might make. Like these:

Michael Barrymore - he can do some ads for safety in swimming pools, reminding people not to take lots of cocaine and get bummed to death.

Lee Bowyer and Jonathan Woodgate - these two footballers can launch a new scheme designed to help stamp out (pun intended) racism and advocate the use of Pakistani owned corner shops.

David Blunkett - he can set up a chain of private detectives called ‘Eye-spy’ who specialise in finding out if the woman you’re having an affair with is actually having another affair with someone else.

Jonathan King and Gary Glitter - they can set up a kids play centre where parents can leave their children for birthday parties or when they go shopping safe in the knowledge they’ll get lots of special attention from the owners themselves.

OJ Simpson - OJ can open a leather goods store specialising in gloves which don’t fit so you can get away with murdering your wife and her lover in a vicious frenzy of stabbing and stuff. His partner in this business might be the husband of Rachel O’Reilly.

Roman Polanski, Billy Wyman and Jerry Lee-Lewis - these guys can set up a finishing school for girls under 15 years of age.

Woody Allen - need help with starting an affair with your adopted daughter that you’ve had since she was a toddler? Damn the morality of it - Woody will teach you how to get stuck in. Just send $99.99 and you’ll receive a full instruction booklet packed with Polaroid pictures.

George Best - his new work out DVD ‘How to care for your new liver’ will be available soon. It includes great new moves such as ‘Get pissed all day long’, ‘Beat your wife’ and ‘Drinking meths when the pubs close is no big problem’.

Bertie Ahern - He can become a stuttering fool of a politician whose main concern is ensuring none of the shit his government gets up to ever reflects badly on him. Wait a minute…

Small question

by Twenty Major on April 16th, 2005

Where does a male snake keep his mickey and where does the lady snake have her opening of love for the male snake to put his mickey in?

Irish blogs again

by Twenty Major on April 15th, 2005

There are, if you go look at Planet of the Blogs, literally tens of Irish blogs for you to choose from, dealing with all kinds of subjects. Technology, life in general, drinking booze, not drinking booze, the arts, photoblogs and many, many more.

But the the Irish blogging scene so ‘new’ (relatively speaking - the first recorded blogs were spotted in 1876 in Nebraska) there are some we’re missing in the Irish blogosphere. Or Boggersphere as one witty chap named it. That is good for anyone from outside of Ireland talking about Irish blogs in general but for us Dubs the term ‘bogger’ doesn’t sit very well as it describes only those outside of Dublin with their wellies and ruddy cheeks and donkey jackets. And that’s just the ladies.

Anyway, having spent a considerable amount of time thinking about this I believe we’re missing some Irish blogs which would cover important parts of our culture. Who will step up to the plate and get them off the ground? List to follow:

foreignworker.blogspot.com: We need a blog from many of the foreign workers in this country. The shop assistants in Spar, the waiters in Dublin’s restaurants, the Turkish construction workers, the lounge girls in the the bars and all the others who now do the jobs that Irish people feel are too lowly to bother with.

Example entry: Man come in. Ask for pint. Serve pint to man. He no give me tip. Spit in man next pint.

irishgossip.blogspot.com: There are all kinds of sites for Hollywood gossip but we don’t have anybody bitching and sniping, on a regular basis, about Ireland’s phalanx of media and entertainment stars. We need somebody to deflate their swelled heads, prick their fragile egos and make them realise that as famous people we’re entitled to mock them ceaselessly and they can’t do anything about it.

Example entry: Saw Ryle Nugent in Kiely’s last night. He was drinking a pint of Smithwicks. Later spotted outside Brian O’Driscoll’s house with a mandolin serenading the Irish captain with ‘Everybody hurts’ by REM.

irishsport.blogspot.com: There are some blogs which cover sport from time to time but there doesn’t seem to one dedicated to sport or a particular sport. Given that we play so much sport in this country it does seem odd we’re missing that kind of blog. We could have one about rugby, GAA, stabbing people outside pubs or even League of Ireland football.

Example entry from St Patrick’s Athletic blog: Went to the game last night. Loada bollix it was. Dem fucking Bohs fuckin cunts from de Nortside fuckin won it widda skanky penno. De bleedin’ ref was a load a me hoop, the muppet. Least we borned his fuckin’ car outside de Stadium o’ Ligh’. Reeeeet.

famousperson.blogspot.com: Other countries have blogs by famous people, such as Noam Chomskey, that wee nerd from Star Trek and Moby. Ireland’s famous people are letting the blogging revolution pass them by. Sort it out, famebots.

Example entry: Hi fans. Wrote another dreary song with very few instruments in it last night. It’s about a man who loves a girl but the girl doesn’t love the man so he writes a song about how much he loves the girl and the fact the girl doesn’t love him makes him love her even more. It’s called ‘I really love this girl but she doesn’t love me’. I suppose you could say it’s autobiograpical…[continues in this vein for what seems like 200 pages]. Until next time. Damien Rice.

knackerblog.blogspot.com: This Irish travelling community gets a hard time. Perhaps a blog would give people valuable insight into their way of life.

Example entries: Wednesday: Thurles. Went door to door looking for handouts. Robbed some clothes off some washing lines. Went home in a 05 Hi-Ace. Had sex with my sister/wife.

Thursday: Clonmel. Went door to door looking for handouts. Robbed some clothes off some washing lines. Went home in a 05 Hi-Ace. Had sex with my sister/wife.

luasdriver.blogspot.com: We’ve got a taxi driver’s blog, a busman’s blog, now we need a blog from a driver of Dublin’s newest form of public transport. The Luas.

Example entries: Weds - crashed. Thurs - crashed. Fri - some cunt crashed into me. Sat - crashed. Sun- ran over pedestrian. Mon - ran out of electricity.

So there are just some of the blogs the Irish blogging scene is missing. Can you think of any more?

Compare and contrast

by Twenty Major on April 14th, 2005

Yesterday - man imports cannabis, gets caught = 5 years in jail.

A couple of months ago - man who sexually abuses children, gets caught = 6 month suspended sentence.

Yesterday - man downloads hundreds of kiddie porn images = €1,000 fine and 2 year suspended sentence.

Now I’m not saying that importing 27 kilos of grass is all right. Obviously there are laws in place about it and if you risk it you have to be willing to take the punishment. There are those that will say that people who smoke grass will go on to take heroin and end up like that bloke in Trainspotting who’s bird discovers their home-made porn video has been nicked so he tries heroin and gets addicted to heroin and ends up dying of cat flu or something.

Of course there are people like that but there are people who can go out and have a drink every night and not become alcoholics whereas there are others who drink a drink then live for drink for the rest of their lives. You never hear of somebody coming out of a nightclub after smoking 12 joints and starting fights. Substitute joints for pints and you’ll see the difference. Anyway, the point is that in the main smoking a few joints tends to make people placid, giggly, hungry for stuff they wouldn’t normally eat and willing to listen to Pink Floyd.

Now, having sex with a young boy, to me, seems a far worse crime than smuggling some dried plants. Perhaps I’m wrong, maybe my perspective is skewed, but surely an adult sexually abusing more than one child on more than one ocassion deserves more time in jail than the grass man.

I’m not suggesting that the grass smuggler should be given less than 5 years. If that’s what the law says then that’s the way the judge has got to handle it. What I am suggesting is that the degenerate, perverted, child rapist should be given more than 5 years. Something has to be done about the sentencing for child abusers, downloaders of kiddie porn and so on. At the moment they’re getting off with ridiculously lenient sentences while, to my mind, far lesser offences are being punished more.

Yes, they get placed on the Sex Offenders Register in Ireland but then nobody has access to that so nobody knows who the fuck is on it. They get away with fines and suspended sentences and it makes you wonder why.

Don’t you wonder why? Doesn’t it make you suspicious? I know I feel like that. Like there’s something being hidden. Like people are being slapped on the wrist and not punished too serverely in case they open their mouths and implicate all kinds of people. Maybe I’m just being a suspicious Aloysius. Maybe not.

They’ve got to start getting tougher with these people or people will have to start asking some seriously difficult questions. And I’m sure they wouldn’t want that.

Related: Dangermaus - Fiddling the system

Stomach bugs

by Twenty Major on April 13th, 2005

So 8,800 people every day get a ’stomach bug’ in Ireland and have to take day off work. That’s according to Safefood, the Food Safety Promotion Board.

Apparently they’ve done all kinds of research into it and have decided that Northern Ireland and real Ireland must collaborate over the outbreaks of gastro-intestinal diseases.

What they fail to have taken into account is that at least 75% of these ’stomach bugs’ are just people chancing their arm and looking for a day off work.

“Sorry boss, I’ve got a stomach bug. Yeah, must have been something I ate. Got a sandwich from Centra. I reckon the mayonaisse was off. Been shitting my arse off all night. I’ll be better tomorrow though.”

It’s amazing how many of these stomach bugs only last 24 hours, if they even last that long. It’s a dangerous business making up illnesses though. I’m not a great believer in God but I reckon there’s someone up there having a laugh.

I remember once, many years ago, trying to get off school by telling my dear old mam that I had a terrible ear-ache. She, being far smarter than me, wasn’t buying it for a second so I was packed off to school. Not three hours later though I had the worst fucking ear-ache of all time and had to be sent home. It lasted days. Stupid lesson-teaching son of a cunt.

And the best one of all time was Conor Murphy bunking off school for three days then telling us proudly in the yard what he told the headmaster. “I told him my granny and grand-dad died in a terrible car crash.” We all gasped at his audacity while he just laughed.

Later that week his entire family was killed on the Naas dual-carriageway when a truck ploughed them off the road. He wasn’t laughing then, I can tell you.

Since then I’ve been very truthful when I’ve needed time off ‘work’.

“I’m not coming in today.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re a cunt and I hate you.”

Honesty is the best policy even if it doesn’t make for long-lasting employment.

Mary Harney is a fat cunt

by Twenty Major on April 12th, 2005

Does anyone else think that there’s some link between the fact our Minister for Health is a morbidly obese behemoth who’s likely to drop dead from a heart attack or slip into a diabetic coma at any minute and the fact that our healthcare system is completely shite?

We all know about the lack of beds, the lack of funds given to pay the nurses who really fucking earn their money and should be paid twice as much as those cuntbag politicians, and the fact that people being admitted to hospital can expect to spend at least a couple of days on a trolley in a corridor before they get a proper bed.

Now I’m reading about Patients Groups saying the people in the corridors need minders because when they get up to go to the toilet they’re having their trolleys and pillows taken by other patients or by hospital staff so they can get more people in the corridors. That’s just madness.

And what about the people who come to visit the people lucky enough to have a bed, or those waiting on people in surgery? They’re supposed to wait in the corridors that are now full of patients so they have to wait outside which means they get a chill, end up with pneumonia and end up back in the corridor they should have been waiting in in the first place but this time they’re a patient. Soon enough there’ll be patients in the canteens, the taxi ranks and even the little shop that sells newspapers and cheap flowers.

The minister visits the Mater Hospital, Dublin.

And all the while the government has been stealing money from old aged pensioners to ‘pay’ for nursing home care. They’re fucking stealing money from us all over the place with their taxes for every little thing nowadays. Expect a ‘Stool tax’ one of these days were you have to weigh your own poo before you flush it down the toilet. Or an ‘Air tax’ where they measure your lung capacity and charge you every year to help fund their efforts to cut down pollution in city centres.

Anyway, the point is that we all like to think Ireland is a great old place and we’re all happy as larry with this Celtic Tiger shite but our hospitals are like bush clinics in Botswana. It’s third world stuff.

And what does the Minister for Health do? Fuck all as far as I can see apart from grow large with food.

Hey Harney, maybe if you cut your ’sweets and cakes’ budget by 50% we could hire more nurses and build more hospitals you corpulent, swollen, porcine, blimpy, distended, roly-poly butterball of a oversized, meaty, lard-arsed cunt.

This government are a bunch of shysters and spoofers. Nobody should ever vote for them again. In fact, nobody should vote for any of the opposition parties either. That’d rightly fuck up the whole lot of those poxy shitbags.

Ireland needs a benevolent dictator. I’ve got a few years free….

—–

New Dangermaus - get yours now!

Dear Twenty - part 1

by Twenty Major on April 11th, 2005

From time to time I get emails from people asking me their advice. I don’t know why but I try and help them and give them the benefit of the wisdom I have accumulated over the years.

Here are some samples of the letters I get and the replies I’ve sent back:

Dear Twenty,

I used to be in a very famous boy band but now everyone seems to think I’m a fuckwitted cocksucker. Is there anything I can do to improve my image in the fickle world of pop music?

Brian, Dublin.

Dear Bryan,

kill yourself. It worked wonders for the likes of Jeff Buckley. You never hear anyone say a bad word about him. If I could be so bold I suggest throwing yourself under a 15B, preferably when I’m on it.

Twenty

—–

Dear Twenty Major,

you appear to be a well-connected man. Do you know anyone who might be able to provide forged documentation, such as work visas, leaving cert results etc?

Kunle, Palmerstown

Yes, Kunle, I can, but it’s very expensive. I have an alternative suggestion for you though. Have you ever seen a movie called ‘Soul Man’ where the white guy makes himself black so he can get into college easier?

All you have to do is make yourself white and change your name to Finbar Murphy. You’ll save yourself a fortune on dodgy paperwork and with your underlying pigmentation you’ll always get a great tan when you go on your holidays.

Twenty

—–

Dear Twenty,

is it a bit sick that my model girlfriend looks exactly like my pop-star sister?

Jim, Dundalk

Yes, it is. You’re a pervert and you should probably kill yourself. If you don’t want to go that far I recommend breaking up the band and moving to the Galapagos Islands. As soon as possible.

Twenty

—–

Dear Twenty,

despite the success of my insipid chick-lit novels I seem to have run out of ideas. Can you help me with a suggestion for my new book?

Cecilia, Dublin

Dear Cecilia,

how about this? ‘Crappy author kills herself by throwing herself under a 15B on which a handsome, older man is travelling. After witnessing the suicide the ghost of the young author visits the handsome, erudite, fragrant older man until he calls Ghostbusters and sends the pesky spirit to hell forever and ever.’

I know I’d buy it.

Twenty.

—–

Dear Twenty,

although I’m a very powerful man my work chums slag me constantly for my Dublin accent and terrible stutter. Should I take elocution lessons?

Bertie

Dear B-b-b-b-bertie,

I think it would be better for all if you took electricution lessons. Up your hole.

Twenty

—–

Dear Twenty,

I’ve just started work on a national broadcaster (and my own blog) but I’m worried that people won’t take me seriously with my zany, 80s, Sunshine101-style radio name. Should I have it changed by deed pole?

Rick, Dublin.

Dear Rick,

yes, I think you should change your name to Ulick Magee or Trevor Felch. Then you will go far, my son.

Twenty

—–

Dear Twenty,

I’m a well-respected gang leader but my men don’t seem to have the same adoration for me that they used to. How can I win back their favour?

Gerry, Belfast

Dear Gerry,

here’s what you have to do. Find a young father, stab him to death outside a pub, roundly condemn yourself for your actions, offer to shoot yourself as a mark of retribution then you’ll find your men will love you again. Especially if you do actually shoot yourself.

Twenty.

—–

So there you go. As you can see all those people will go on to have happy, successful lives if they just follow my words of wisdom and sagacity.

So, there I was…

by Twenty Major on April 8th, 2005

…after having a few pints in the local and me and Jimmy decided to head into town. One of our mates works as a barman in the Clarence Hotel, owned by U2 don’tcha know, so we sketched in there for a few late ones.

Anyway, we were sitting there and I could see this young girl giving me the eye. She wanders over a little later and says “Hey, I really love older men. I’m only here for another few hours. How about a night of passion?”

I clock from her accent that she’s Australian but there’s no way I’m falling for this trap. So I says “Isn’t it past your bedtime, little girl? Look at you trying to fool older men to go to bed with you so the police can arrest them for paedophilia. You’re a disgrace and quite honestly the police should be using someone better than you. You haven’t even fully grown yet. You’re only 5′ tall, you’ve got no breasts and from behind you look like a schoolboy. Do I look like Michael Jackson or Darina Allen’s husband to you? Go on, fuck off!”

She’s shocked, looks like she’s been slapped in the face, then bellows “Nobody treats Kylie Minogue like that!” before storming off.

“Jaysus, Twenty!”, says Jimmy the Bollix. “You’ve rightly fucked it up there. Don’t you know who that is?”

“Haven’t a fucking clue, Jimmy,” I says. “Now get me another fucking pint.”

Email to Gerry

by Twenty Major on April 7th, 2005

From: The IRA [mailto:paddy1916@ira.org]
Sent: Thurs 07/04/2005 09:13
To: Gerry Adams [beardycunt@sinnfein.ie]
Subject: Re: your statement yesterday

Gerry,

it’s with great dismay that I’m writing this, hopefully untraceable, email to you. The lads and me had a couple of pints last night, had a bit of a yap about what you had to say and we decided we’d best make our position clear.

First off we were very disappointed with the wording of your statement. You said “For over thirty years the IRA showed that the British government could not rule Ireland on its own terms. You asserted the legitimacy of the right of the people of this island to freedom and independence. Many of your comrades made the ultimate sacrifice.”

It reminded us of that joke when Tonto and the Lone Ranger are surrounded by some savage Indians. The Lone Ranger says “Looks like we’re in big trouble now, old friend.”

Tonto replies, “What do you mean ‘we’, white man?”

I couple of ‘WE’s and ‘I’s in there would have gone down a lot better with the troops, you know what I’m saying big man?

Leaving that aside for the moment you then go on to say there’s an alternative to the armed struggle. Well, maybe for you there is. You go off round the world on your junkets, flying first class, eating in nice restaurants or at nice banquets with world leaders. God forbid anything might come in the way of that.

Anyway, we like violence. Our days are boring enough since this poxy ceasefire and now we’re not allowed a bit of argy-bargy, petrol bombing or punishment beatings to keep us occupied? You’re away with the fairies and people will think we’ve gone gay or something.

You ask us to show courage by trying to achieve our aims through politics and democracy. No offence, like, but politics is really fucking boring, so it is. You need to be a special kind of a cunt to not fall asleep when you, or little Bertie or even that loud mouthed God-botherer Paisley are harping on about peace accords and Good Friday agreements blah blah blah. Zzzzz, Gerry, Zzzzz.

What in the name of all that’s good and holy makes you think we want to get involved in that kind of shit-witchery? As for courage, well, it might take a small amount of courage to risk being bored to death at another all-party conference but it takes much more courage to plant a wee bomb somewhere knowing it might go off in the back of your car on the way to the gig or in your face when you’re sticking it where it’s supposed to go.

We noticed as well that you only said to give up violence in our struggle against the British. Does that mean we can carry on our day to day intimidation, racketeering and organised crime activities? Come on, Ger, you’re coming across as a bit of a hypocrite there, eh?

Anyway, next time we hook up for a pint and a game of dominoes we can go over these things in a bit more depth. We just thought it would only be fair to give you a bit of a chance to have a think beforehand.

Well, must dash. There are young fathers to be stabbed all over the fucking shop.

yours,

The IRA.

Beer is good, mmmmkaaaaaay.

by Twenty Major on April 6th, 2005

I was thinking last night - ‘What if we didn’t have beer?’

Can you imagine a world without beer? How dull would it be? How unused would the urinals in bars be? How could we decide who was drinking a manly drink when all around people would be supping Canadian Club and ginger ale, or vodka and tonic or strawberry daquiris?

I mean some of the beer we have is not worthy of the name. Most American lagers are weak and pissy. Ireland has never, ever produced a lager worth drinking although who amongst wouldn’t have quaffed a quart or two of Harp if we thought we might get a go of Sally O’Brien and the way she might look at you?

Germans and Belgians make good beers but that’s because they have fuck all else to do. I went to Belgium once. You could buy incredibly powerful fireworks in the post offices but letting them off in that square with the statue of the little boy having a slash was no fun simply because we were doing it in Belgium. When your country is most famous for an old cyclicst and some paedolphile cunt who killed girls in his garden shed it’s no wonder they have beers that are 20% proof.

As for the Germans, well, what can I say? Their women are large and full of testosterone. I’d drink giant gallon glasses of beer too before I’d dare try and fornicate with one of them. Stinkin’ Pete once had a German mistress. He said it was like being ridden by a buffalo on acid. Don’t ask me how Pete knows what that feels like.

Ever go to a Japanese restaurant? Order a beer and they bring you a bottle of ‘Tiger beer’ or ‘Ninja beer’ or something and it’s quite tasty really. It’s just not tasty enough to pay twice the price of a normal beer.

English beers. Well. Mmmmmm, warm ales, fizzy bitters which look like TK red lemonade and the unspeakable filth that is Newcastle Brown Ale. The dangleberries of a million Geordies swilled around in some old piss and washing up water then stuck into bottles. It tastes like what your vomit would taste like if you vomited, ate it back up, vomited again, ate it up again then vomited it back into a glass full of mud. Put a little umbrella at the top and you’ve got a Geordie cocktail. Right, Mosher?

Then there’s Guinness. It’s food and drink. It’s creamy and good. It’s delicious and tasty. It’s yer only man, as they say. Unless you get a bad pint in which case it’s the worst poison known to man. Forget anthrax and germ warfare. If the US military could give one bad pint of Guinness to the insurgents (or locals as you might call them) in Iraq the war would be over in a wash of black poo and stomach aches.

So there you go. That’s beer. Giver of life, provider of bellies and source of many loud farts. Mine’s a Guinness. What’s yours?