Archive for May, 2006
Dear Bertie
by Twenty Major on May 31st, 2006
Dear Bertie,
I was watching the news yesterday with great interest after the ruling which saw a man freed from jail after pleading guilty to and being convicted of plying 12 year old with booze and then raping her when she woke up to be sick.
Like most people in the country I’m pretty much disgusted that this could happen and that more men will be set free. It’s also shocking that men awaiting both charges and sentencing could get away with similar crimes, but that’s not why I’m writing to you.
No doubt more esteemed scribes than I will have plenty to say about it in the opinion columns and there’ll be lots of reaction from other blogs so I’ll leave it up to them.
The point I would like to raise with you though is this. While Fine Gael’s Enda Kenny and Pat Rabbite of the Labour Party rightly tore strips off you and your government you sat there looking down at the desk, maybe even scribbling on a piece of paper. You could, for all intents and purposes, have been playing noughts and crosses with yourself.
Their tirades over it was your turn to speak. This is where I have the biggest problem. You stood there, again not making any eye-contact with the people you were addressing, looking down and with one hand in your pocket told us not to worry.
You stood there, with your hand in your pocket, and refused to entertain the idea of the Dail continuing to sit until suitable legislation was in place.
You stood there, with your fucking hand in your pocket, and said “I am trying to deal with a serious problem in a serious way.”
And here’s the thing, Bertie. I don’t believe you for a second because you looked like you didn’t give a shit. You might as well have been chewing on a piece of gum while you said it. It really did appear that couldn’t care less that a 38 year old who raped a 12 year old was released.
It might as well have been just another one of your party colleagues involved in tax evasion or corruption or dodgy planning applications. You know, the day to day stuff your government has been involved in for years. You were more upset when the Bertiebowl didn’t happen.
You’re supposed to be the leader of the country but you stand in the Dail like some kind of a fucking corner boy or the lad in school who always gets sent to the headmaster but doesn’t give a shit because he knows his parents won’t ever punish him enough for him to be worried. And that’s the thing. You are that boy because no matter what you and your cronies have done for the last 10 years the people of Ireland have pretty much let you away with it.
Our fault entirely but do you think when something like this happens again in the future, and I have no doubt it will sooner rather than later, you could at least pretend to be slightly bothered by it? I don’t mean an Oscar winning performance, no Tom Hanks style drama, but if Colin Farrell can make it in Hollywood, for fuck’s sake, then surely that wouldn’t be beyond you.
Take your hands out of your pockets, look people in the eye and pretend to care. We’d all appreciate it.
cheers,
Twenty Major
ps - you’re a slippery little cunt and no mistake.
Isn’t beer fantastic?
by Twenty Major on May 30th, 2006
I think beer is great. I’m sure many of you who have been reading this site for a while will know already that I’m fond of a pint but every now and then you have to step back a bit to appreciate it.
My main tipple is Guinness. Ron the Barman’s serves the best Guinness in Dublin knocking Mulligans on Poolbeg Street into a close second. It’s just delicious when it’s good. Not at all delicious when it’s not and it doesn’t take much to turn Guinness from a great drink into one that can curdle the contents of your stomach in seconds.
But it’s not just stout that’s worth drinking. A fine ale is always welcome and a good bitter can be just the thing but we don’t get that in Ireland. It’s very much an English thing.
Lager. Common but fantastic as well. Go away to the sunshine in the summer and sample the delights of the meditteranean. A Moretti in Italy or a San Miguel in Spain. What about the delicious refreshing Coronitas you get with a chunk of lime in the top when you come up from the beach and your mouth is full of salt water and sand? Mexicans beer + Mexican food = taste heaven but it really does your ring no good the next day.
Let’s look at Belgium, the most useless country ever - apart from all the brilliant beers they make. They lock monks away in monasteries and tell them Christ will violate them unless they brew beers which are stronger than most wines. And what a collection. I remember passing many an evening in Belgo, which has now closed down sadly, where you could get all sorts of Belgian beers. They would knock the bollix off you.
Germany - man, those fuckers know how to drink beer. “Eine smallen bier, bitte” and they give you a 4 litre jug. Brilliant. And they just sit around in beer gardens eating meat while they drink. Show me the flaw in that plan.
Shame America has never given us a beer worth drinking and they invented ‘Lite beer’ which makes me think they haven’t got a fucking clue. ‘Lite beer’. Jesus. Just stay at home you giant Marys. We’ll have none of that shite here.
Most of us go out of a weekend and drink beer and we take it for granted. We don’t appreciate it for all the brilliant things it does for. It makes us talkative when we are not feeling too sociable, it makes us eat battered sausages when normally we wouldn’t touch them, it gives us confidence and the ability to become a raconteur and story teller so witty that Ustinov himself would curl up and die and it allows ugly people to have sex more often than they should.
So don’t forget when you’re having a beer the next time to say thanks for all that beer has done for you.
I love you beer.
Let’s remember the famine
by Twenty Major on May 29th, 2006
Oh yeah. Some group wants the government to have a national day of remembrence for the people that died in the famine.
Grand. No objections here. Them damn Brits poisoned our spuds then prevented the likes of Findus, McCains and Knorr from sending us ready made frozen meals which would have saved lots of lives. Bastards.
What about all those fuckers that just ran away though? Surely some retrospective punishment needs to be applied to them. Not only did they leave their friends and family in the lurch they went on to create Irish-Americans who funded the IRA for so many years.
If they had stayed put and starved to death like everybody else then Gerry and Martin wouldn’t have had all those swish parties to attend to and all those Americans saying “My gawd, my father was 1/8 Irish so here’s $50,000 to spend on semtex and rocket launchers.”
When you have a problem in life you need to stand up and face it not run away like some kind of starving, famine victim. Look at the mayhem you create 125 years later.
These cowardly escapees need to be tracked down and their anscestors should be made to pay for the crimes of their yellow-bellied relatives. Take them out of their plush New Hampshire homes and make the cunts live in Westmeath for 20 years. Then they’d think twice about emerging to the world from the namby-pamby vagina of a great-granddaughter of a famine victim.
Frankly, I am appalled.
Fight the power!
by Twenty Major on May 26th, 2006
Relax, Tom! I’m on it…
Taxi drivers
by Twenty Major on May 26th, 2006
They’re always complaining about something. Now they’re going on strike because new rules mean they might earn less. Just work more you lazy fuckers. They get to sit in their cars all day. What do they have to complain about?
If I was a taxi driver I’d go round making racing car noises all day.
“Where ya goin’?”
“Dundrum”
“All right. Put your belt on. Vrrrroooooooom, vroooooooooooooooooooooooo, vrum, vrum, vrum, eeeeee-eeeeee-eeeeeee, vroooooooooooom”.
That would be hilarious if a little bit annoying for the passengers. Way back when there was a taxi driver with a blog but he gave up because every time he thought about updating he was going in the wrong direction.
‘Ah fuck it, I’m heading for the bog, not the office. Sorry.’
Good man, Tommy! At least in Dublin the taxis will stop occasionally. Not like in Paris where the ones who already have passengers give you the finger and the empty ones just look at you like you’re a AIDS riddled, leperous, cholera spreading Romanian. The only way get a cab is to jump in the open windows as they’re driving by.
Not an easy task after a a bottle or two of 1963 vin de table
Regrets? They’ve had a few…
by Twenty Major on May 25th, 2006
I was in Mulligans for a couple of swift lunchtime pints yesterday when someone tapped me on the shoulder.
Quick as a flash, my ninja instincts to the fore, I span around ready to confront my would be assassin. There was no awesome battle of kicks and slaps and running across treetops though as it was somebody I hadn’t seen in a long time.
“All right, Saxon Steve!”, I said.
“How’re ya, Twenty!”, he said.
I should explain where he got his name from. In the late 70s he was a bit of a rocker and his favourite band was Saxon. He had a totally shaved head back then and to show the world that he truly loved his favourite band he had their name tattooed on the top of his head.
Back then he was as hard as nails and everyone would go ‘Oooh, best not piss off a man who gets ‘Saxon’ tattooed on his bonce’. He was a good bloke to stand outside somewhere you didn’t want other people to come in.
I met him around 1993 and he was working as a doorman on Leeson Street. He’d let his hair grow back but mens hair being mens hair it was beginning to thin out and you could make out a good chunk of the S and the N and the bottom of the X. I was quite sure by 2000 his Saxon would be in full view for everyone. Not so.
“Nice head of hair you’ve got there, Saxon Steve”, I said.
“Yeah, it is, isn’t it? Comes off though. I was as bald as an egg by 1997. Couldn’t find work anywhere because of my head. Got a wig then got a job working as a salesman in DID down on the Crumlin Road.”
“What about getting it taken off?”
“Nah, the lasery surgery option was really too expensive. Me and me brother tried to sand it off one night but it was too sore. I thought maybe a skin transplant might work but no joy. I do still love Saxon but I really regret getting that tattoo.”
Lots of people regret stuff they do when they were young. Go out with the wrong people, sleep with their girlfriend’s mum, drink too much gin and cry about their life in front of lots of people at a party but those things are transient. It’s the mistakes you make that impact the rest of your life that are the worst.
Leaving aside things like killing people and driving drunk through someone’s front window and maiming an entire family watching Glenroe I knew a few people who did things back then they really regret now.
There was Coleman Carr and his trick of running headfirst into a tree as hard as he could. This was a very impressive feat. Seeing him clatter into a mighty oak without that instinctive putting your hands in front of you was something to behold. Unfortunately he did it one day and when he spoke again he used the letter L instead of R and R instead of L. He still talks like that. I see him around from time to time.
“Herro Twenty”, he says like a native of Nagasaki. ‘Rovery day!”
Then there was Brian Conlon who made the fatal error of aggravating Boothead, a notorious local lunatic. Boothead grabbed Conlon’s mouth and pulled it apart so it split wide open at the corners. It was larger than the offspring of Cherie Blair and a shark. He’s never married because his face looks like it was stitched back together by a group of 14 year olds. Which it was.
Billy Morgan was a mate of Dirty Dave who decided he wanted to get a Prince Albert. Bad mistake. Within three days it was infected, in five it was grotesquely swollen and on the ninth day, when he eventually went to the hospital, the infection had travelled so far down his urethra that he ejaculated half of pint of pus when the doctors attended to him.
And finally there was young Adam who pretended he could play the bass to join a band with some schoolmates and has had to spend the last 25 years with Bono.
Know anyone with similar regrets?
Why…
by Twenty Major on May 24th, 2006
…is it so fucking hard to open a lettuce? Where do they get this industrial strength sellotape that they seal the wrapper with?
Just say no
by Twenty Major on May 24th, 2006
“Here, Twenty”, said Dirty Dave. “Just been to the cinema, so I have.”
“So anyway, Ron, as I was saying I reckon what they need to do this summer is bring in a couple of top quality players wh-”
“Yep. Went to see The DaVinci Code.”
“…who will add some depth to the squad. Otherwise they’re going to struggle a bit agains-”
“You know the film of the book? Starring Tom Hanks and Audrey Tattoo.”
“…against the top sides. In fairness last season they were a bit unlucky but their record against the top three club-”
“All about Jesus giving Mary Magdalene one and them having Jesusitos and the arc of the covenant being in Scotland. Of course nobody told Indiana Jones that. Or all them Germans who got their faces melted off.”
‘…clubs was pretty woeful. You’ve got to think a title challenge depends on the signings he makes. I mean what I woul-”
“Very interesting theory anyway and it’s quite possible that some secrets like that do exist. Maybe I should take a trip to the Louvre and check it out a bit more.”
“…would do is bring in a big, strong central midfield player and at least one winger. Maybe a bit of experience at the back too becau-”
“Yer man Dan Brown is a genius though. What a book it was. Total page turner, eh, Twenty? A fast paced thriller, they might say. Are you going to go see the fillum yourself, Twenty?”
“…because the young players they have need someone alongside them they can learn from. Teach them the little tricks they nee-”
“Sure I might go see it again. Right after I buy the illustrated audio hardback to add to my collection. I’ve got three copies of it, so I do. It’s truly a great work of literature. I wouldn’t be surprised if they brought into the Leaving Cert syllabus. Get shot of some of that old Dickens shite.”
“…need to kill off games when they’re hanging onto a lead. They could go far if he signs the right players especially when you consid-”
“Well. Been good chatting, Twenty. I’m off for me supper. It’s the last supper I’ll have today. Har Har! Geddit. Last supper! Right, see ya!”
“…consider the quality they already have in the squad. He’s gone has he? Thank fuck. You see, if you ignore them long enough they’ll go away.”
Let me tell you something
by Twenty Major on May 23rd, 2006
“You swear too much.”
“You trivialise important subjects.”
“You’re gratuitiously offensive and you do it on purpose to garner a reaction.”
“You hammer home your points with a sledgehammer when a jeweler’s pick would do.”
“You surround yourself with morons and halfwits who are too stupid to make their own minds up about anything.”
“You use the ‘C word’ far too often.”
“There’s a line and you cross it with impunity time and time again.”
“You’re a disgusting fuckin disgrace, more a latrine than a person.”
“You’re borderline racist. In fact, sometimes you’re outright racist.”
“You go too far.”
“Your humour is puerile, scatalogical and tasteless.”
“Your appeal is limited to the dregs of society. The lowest common denominator.”
Amazingly, after this intervention by her family Maeve Binchy became a very successful writer.