Who’s with me?

by Twenty Major on July 20th, 2007

Right, here’s what we’ll do.

We’ll set up a ‘chick-lit’ blog in which we’ll discuss and pore over the latest chick-lit releases. Then once we start getting some traffic we’ll begin to publish some of our own chick-lit stories and this will make the blog incredibly popular. Then what we’ll do is hawk ourselves around to publishers who will pay us a fortune for a two book deal simply because of the genre we’re writing in.

We’ll slap out a couple of books a year, with gaudy pink titles and pretty models on the front who look like they’ve had their hearts broken but who, deep down, are strong women who can cope - once they have their friends and tubs of ice-cream to eat in their pyjamas! LOL.

We’ll sell the film rights, buy a big fucking castle and sit there drinking expensive brandy and laughing at the real writers who scratch around for fuck all.

‘Oh’, we’ll say, ‘I hear that fellow only got a four figure deal (and two of those were after the decimal point) and we’re well on our way to a seven figure deal to follow up our six figure deal’.

Load of cunt.

Is the Tribune fucked? It is not.

by Twenty Major on July 19th, 2007

The Indo is today full of glee and good cheer about the fact that Ross O’Carroll-Kelly will no longer write his column for the paper. One ‘media source’ says the weekly column was the ‘linchpin’ of the newspaper and that without him they will struggle. Poppycock and balderdash and possibly some piffle thrown in. The Tribune has the awesome power of the Irish blogosphere to keep it going.

Now, firstly the Tribune has Damien Mulley whose weekly column about a man living in Cork airport desperately waiting for his bags which end up in a different country each week prompting him to use hilarious profanity is an absolute classic, in my opinion. Sure, it might look like it’s dressed up as a technology column but you’ve got to read between the lines to find the hidden depth. It’s like one of those Magic Eye pictures. It takes a while but once you see it it’s cool.

Then there’s Richard Delevan who is American and sounds like a cowboy. Not a builder who uses shoddy materials and working practices but a real life, home on the range cowboy. If you read his work in the voice of John Wayne it’s fucking cool. Who knew business news and editorials could be so engaging? Plus Richard has a beard and as you all know a beard is a sign of a real man. His could do with a little lengthening, whitening and twisting into a little point but for the time being it’ll do.

Una Rocks, another Irish blogger, is part of the team too. Despite spending much of her week on the piss backstage at every gig that happens in the country - and taking pictures of herself from really strange angles - she, single-handedly, writes 45% of the paper’s material (and not many people know that they just use a picture of Liam Brady and get Una to write about football too).

Then there’s the Blogorrah connection in the magazine in which Editor Eminiminus Derek O’Connor writes a piece about Star Wars each week. Of course Blogorrah is gone by the wayside now. Some have spoken of a falling out between the two top dogs, some have suggested a lack of money, but I can exclusively reveal they’re all in jail having been caught trying to score some PCP after Lindsay Lohan promised them a go of her fanny if they sorted her out. A truly sordid tale.

So Ross O’Carroll-Kelly will go off and write a play, which is the only thing on earth gayer than a poem, but the Trib, the wonderful blog powered Trib, will press on. Pardon the pun. Or don’t.

Snail v Lawnmower

by Twenty Major on July 18th, 2007

There can be only one winner. Take that you house carrying, boggly-eyed cunt.

The news is boring

by Twenty Major on July 18th, 2007

“Have you noticed”, said Stinking Pete, who last night was particularly stinking after the consumption of some cured meat that had cured itself down the back of his washing machine when he’d dropped it there a few months previously, “that the news at the moment is very boring?”

“To be honest with you”, I said, “I hadn’t really been paying too much attention. I’ve been far too busy living the outdoor life in this wonderful climate we have.”

“Right, well, if you saw a news story about €200m of cocaine washing up on a shore it’d make the start of a great film, wouldn’t it? Then some crazy South Americans would come to get their gear back and they’d knock off a few police until the Irish Starsky and Hutch sorted them out and scored some unseasonably hot dames along the way. And there’d be explosions and car chases and stuff. What happens here? We find €200m worth of coke off the Cork coast and three half-drowned Englishmen. That’s shit.”

“Yeah, I suppose it is.”

“Eircom are about to go on strike, are they? Poor Eircom employees. I was talking to a mate of Lasher Ryan whose brother knows a lad who works in sales there, fucking gangster he is apparently, and they just got a big fat tax free cheque the other week on the back of that share issue years back that every cunt in the country lost money on.”

“You don’t say.”

“I do say. And they want to strike. Boring. Bertie’s finances. Boring. People being killed on the roads. Boring. Sure look at the murder-suicide in Wicklow the other day. The son, who’s in his 40s now, shoots his elderly parents then kills himself. And are we really that fucking shocked? It’s like there’s one happening every other week. ‘Oh, I’m depressed. I think I’ll smother my own children then kill myself. That’ll teach them’. Yeah yeah. Change the fucking record, Leo Sayer. We’ve heard it all before. Do something different you sad bastard. John Gormley has been appointed leader of the Greens has he? Oh, who the fuck is John Gormley? See?! He’s so boring I forgot who he was while I was in the middle of talking about him.”

“So what? Are you looking for some natural disaster? An act of terrorism? After the initial thrill you kind of bored of the blanket coverage very quickly.”

“Yeah. I dunno. I just wish the news was a bit more interesting.”

Just then Dirty Dave came over, looking all excited.

“You’ll never guess what I just did.”

“No, I never will. Tell me.”

“I was just at home and I was naked on the floor practising my yoga and I managed to lick my own arsehole!”

I sighed.

“Ron, put on the news there, would ya?”

The strange little girl

by Twenty Major on July 17th, 2007

Once upon a time there was a little girl who was very strange. She was 10 years old and she didn’t like it when people looked at her. If her mother or father or either of her two sisters so much as glanced in her direction they would be hissed at.

“Don’t look at me.”

“There is something wrong with you”, said her mother. “Normal girls like it when people look at them.”

“I am perfectly normal”, she would reply. “I just don’t like it when people look at me.”

So she would read books and go to school and play games and do all the things that any other little girl would do. Except nobody was allowed look at her. Or touch her.

“Don’t touch me anymore”, she said at the dinner table one night.

“Why not?”, asked her eldest sister.

“Because I have decided that I don’t like it and that’s all there is to it.”

She was a strong-willed little girl and nobody wasted their time arguing with her. Not even when she decided that she no longer wished to be spoken to and nobody was to expect her to speak to them either.

“Now I’ve had just about enough of this”, said the girl’s father. “This is preposterous behaviour. I think you must be quite mad”, but soon his bluster was cut short and nobody looked at, touched or spoke to the girl. And they did not hear her voice again until she told them, some months later, that while she was in the house there was to be no talking at all.

“This is lunacy”, said her other sister. “You cannot possibly expect us to stop communicating simply because you don’t like it. Your demands are outrageous and we will not comply.”

She was wrong. They did comply. And when they next saw her, as they sat eating dinner in silence and passing notes about each other’s days, she had sewn up her nostrils to deprive herself of the sense of smell. Written in chalk on a slate was her insistence that all strong odours were to be removed from the house at once and only plain, boiled food could be eaten.

Later that night after the girl was asleep the rest of the family went for a walk. They were all quite drained and exhausted from living that way.

“Oh, this is terrible”, said the girl’s mother. “I just want my little girl back.”

“We shall get her the best help we can and we shall spare no expense”, said her father as the two sisters looked on.

They took her to a mental hospital under the pretence of bringing her to the seaside and there a doctor knocked her out with gas and cut out a great big chunk of her frontal lobe. Her family were upset but this was eased by the return to a more normal lifestyle.

The little girl lies all day in her bed, which has a blue duvet cover with faded white flowers on it, staring out the window which overlooks the workyard - and her head is full of noise. It never stops.

Goodfella’s Wives

by Twenty Major on July 16th, 2007

Last week I had to go to Dundrum shopping centre. There were lots of people around but those that stood out most were the girls between the age of about 15-20. Not out of any pervy way, you’ll understand, something else.

In and around Grafton Street on Saturday these girls (not the same ones from Dundrum but girls of a similar age) also stood out. ‘What was it?’, I asked myself.

Then it came to me. They all look like the wives from Goodfellas. You know when Henry is just making it big and he’s getting into the whole coke dealing thing? Well, there’s a scene when they come over to his new house and he shows off his entertainment unit (tastefully hidden behind some doors), his stone cladding and various other ostentatious decorations. All the lads arrives with their wives/mistresses and the girls in Dundrum and in town all look like them.

• Orange to the point of glowing with fake tan/sunbeds - check
• Enormous big sunglasses/welder’s glasses - check
• Hair swept back and held in place with half a can of hairspray - check
• Gaudy eye make-up - check
• Comfortable looking leisure suits made from what appears to be velure - check

Honestly, now that you’ve been told you won’t be able to not see it. The GFWs are everywhere. Hanging around shops and corners, talking on their mobile phones, looking like coke deal gangster’s molls from the late 70s, early 80s. It’s bizarre. You sort of expect them to talk in that Goodfella’s way too but they’re more “Well, like I totally shoplifted that vest from Mango. Oh my God, it’s only, like, completely fair because I bought loads of stuff in there last year with that voucher my stupid parents gave me for my birthday even though I wanted a scooter.”

Watch out for them. GFWs. They’re taking over. Seriously. And where there are the dames the mobsters can’t be too far behind. The lads will start wearing suits and spats. Then we’ll be in real trouble.

Just a warning

by Twenty Major on July 14th, 2007

Tonight’s Lotto jackpot is mine. I baggsed it. If you win I’ll be around for my ticket in the morning.

Stupid rain

by Twenty Major on July 13th, 2007

White t-shirt. Soaked through. Flesh showing. Nipples like saucers. Enormous boobs. Walking towards me down Pearse Street.

I wish that bloke had worn a jacket.

I’ll do it for cheaper

by Twenty Major on July 13th, 2007

A report yesterday suggested that it costs somewhere in the region of €700,000 per year to detain a troubled teen in a detention centre. The 52 teens currently being held by the state costs around €25m per year.

What the fuck? Are they buying them all a one bedroomed flat in Grand Canal View or something? Making sure they’re kitted out in the last D&G or Abercunty and Bitch? Top of the range mobile phones? Plasma TVs. What?

It’s fucking crazy and I could do it for a lot fucking cheaper too. Firstly I would find an old house with a large back garden or perhaps a bit of land. Then I would call up ‘John’s Kennel Supplies’ who provide the infrastructure for many of Ireland’s top dog boarding kennels and I would say to him “Hello, John. I would like 60 kennels built out the back. 8 foot long by 4 wide with a small covered enclosure at the back of each one. Excellent. I know I can count on your excellent service.”

Then, I would put each troubled teen into a kennel, ensuring of course that they had access to clean water at all times. They would get themselves a cheap sleeping bag, bought in bulk from Lidl or somewhere like that, and an endless supply to trashy yet entertaining airport thrillers.

They’d be fed twice a day, rice and chicken, with one snack (Garibaldi biscuits). They would allowed one hours communal exercise in the garden (protected by an electric fence and Bastardface) and then put to bed every night at 10pm. Anyone who barked or howled or otherwise made noise would be beaten with a big stick so that when you went to pet them another time they cowered away from you.

And I would do this for only €100,000 per resident per year. That’s a saving of €600,000 x 52 which is €31m which the government could spend on something good like the health service, more jobs, fighting crime or deporting autistic Nigerians.

To wantonly throw away that kind of money, when a well-thought and feasible plan like mine is on the table is tantamount to negligence on the part of Bertie and Co.

So, what say you, goverment chappies? Twenty’s boarding kennels for troubled teens can be up and running in a matter of weeks. I look forward to hearing from you.

Sleepwalking

by Twenty Major on July 12th, 2007

I love the story about the Director of a big Irish mining company who, while away on a business trip in Mozambique and after a skinful of booze, turned up at the company secretary’s hotel door stark naked. Not once. Not twice. But three times.

Now, who amongst us hasn’t got exceedingly drunk and done something foolish like go for a wee on the bedside table in the spare room thinking you were in the bathroom, but we’ll put our hands up and admit it was the booze. Not this bloke. He says he was sleepwalking. Honestly.

That’s classic. I know there are people who sleepwalk but to sleepwalk to the same lady’s hotel room three times is some pretty fucking accurate sleepwalking.

I’m going to use that as my excuse for everything now.

“Hullo, Twenty?”

“Yes?”

“This is your neighbour from up the road. You appear to have dumped an old mattress, four bags of garden clippings, a bench, some worn our tyres and broken washing machine in our front garden.”

“Oh, have I? I must have been sleepwalking again. I am sorry.”

or

“Look, we have evidence that puts you at the scene of the crime. CCTV cameras caught you pummelling the man, then stealing his wallet, then pissing on him as he lay making that weird gurgling noise people who are really hurt make.”

“Sleepwalking again. When will I ever learn to lock the front door? I’ll just be off then. Bye.”

Dirty Dave claims to have suffered from somnambulism when he was a child in that orphange that time but learned to control his nightly wanderings when he woke up in his pyjamas on Nassau Street one night. A black mercedes pulled up and offered him a lift, the presence in the car shadowed by the tinted windows and dark interior. He just went back to sleep and woke up in a far better place.

The Iveagh Gardens.