Why me?

by Twenty Major on May 25th, 2008

*bring bring*

“Hello?”

“Hello Twenty, it’s me, Dirty Dave.”

“What’s up, Dave?”

“I was in town eating some noodles, you know how I love noodles, and there was a Chinese couple sitting next to me and I realised that I could understand every word they said and I thought ‘Holy Jesus, I can understand Chinese’ but then it struck me. They were speaking English”.

“Goodbye, Dave”.

*click*

‘Tony’ Luciano …yeah, right

by Twenty Major on May 23rd, 2008

That Lucky, is there no end to his crazy antics?

I have no idea

by Twenty Major on May 23rd, 2008

“Twenty”, said Dirty Dave, “you know the way whatisname went on about the theory of evolution?”

“Charles Darwin?”

“No, Crocodile Dundee. But anyway. If we’re all so evolved and stuff, how come men still have nipples?”

“Erm…”

“What purpose do they serve? We cannot allow our young to suckle from us as we do not produce youngling juice. Therefore they are useless and if evolution were really truly real men would have nippleless chests.”

“It’s a reasonable point”.

“So, if this disproves evolution it must then prove the existence of God who made men with nipples because he thought it looked better. Sort of like an Opel Manta with a body kit. Nipples are merely spoilers for men”.

“Deep, man. Deep”.

Brian Cowen, disgrace to the nation

by Twenty Major on May 22nd, 2008

May I this morning call on everyone with a modicum of manners, self-awareness and the ability to please think of the children to join me in outright condemnation of Taoiseach Brian Cowen.

He sullied our great nation yesterday. He couldn’t keep his fat mouth shut, could he? Already humiliated by the performance of a Turkey, who looked shamefully inept compared to the quality entries of other countries, we now have the leader of our country, the man to whom we should look for guidance and counsel in our own lives, swearing like a common sailor in the hallowed chambers of our government.

Frankly it’s just not good enough. We Irish are known for our ‘gift of the gab’, our ability hold court and to speak with intelligence, wit and a certain swagger. Look at our great orators down through the years. Daniel O’Connell, Wolfe Tone, Michael Collins or Eamonn Andrews. None of them had to resort to the kind of childish crudity Cowen did yesterday.

It shows a shocking lack of imagination that he had to use that word, that word which our mothers brought us up to shun and eschew, when there were so many others he could have used.

‘Those eejits’, he might have said. ‘Those gombeens’, ‘Those flippers’, ‘those lily-livered bandicoots’, ‘those bashi-bazouks!’.

The list is endless. A man with real substance would never have uttered the phrase that Cowen did yesterday and it’s a bad sign for Ireland. That such paucity of thought and tongue could emerge in Dail Eireann, a place where integrity, honesty and honour are paramount, is a shame not just to Brian Cowen but to all the people of Ireland who are represented by this foul-mouthed picaroon.

Language, and slightly less hairy backs, is what separates us from the apes. I suspect that if you put a thousand apes in a room with a thousand typewriters soon one of them would write the works of Shakespeare, except it would be absolutely filthy because apes are like that. They use profanities like they’re amusing in some way, like it’s big or clever to call somebody a name.

This morning I am truly saddened that our once great country has sunk so low. As a blogger I know I have a certain responsibility. I know I have to stand up and be counted, for what good is any of this unless we use it to try and make a difference? It would be entirely remiss of me to stand idly by and not highlight the dreadful coarseness that we were innocently subjected to.

How many children this morning will be going around saying ‘effing this’ and ‘eff those effers up their effin’ Cs’?. The answer, my friends, is too many.

You have let us down Taoiseach, I’m sure people will give you the chance to try and repair the damage but don’t let it happen again. You owe us that much.

You owe us that much.

Judges

by Twenty Major on May 21st, 2008

What hilarious bastards judges are. When they’re not handing down suspended sentences to rapists, child abusers and kiddie porn lovers, they’re calling the inhabitants of entire county ‘thick’.

Seriously, what a fucking old bastard he is. You’d never catch me engaging in those kind of lazy stereotypes.

Let them eat it

by Twenty Major on May 21st, 2008

It is 1987. The world is a strange place. Kylie has just released her first single and Rudolf Hess has died. Are the two events connected? Nobody can say for sure but many of us just know.

Platoon won the Oscar for best picture, Hurricane Charlie has swept through Ireland and the UK causing damage and deaths and Senator Gary Hart has dropped out of the US Presidential race after his affair with Donna Rice, mother of Damien, is exposed.

There are massacres in Hungerford, England and in Melbourne when gunmen go rampaging through the streets, cutting down innocents. There is much talk of why. Were these men insane? Did they hear voices? Could medication and counselling have prevented these disasters? The answer is, no. For years the cover-up has ensured that the real reasons behind it were never known to the public. Now is the time for the exposé. 1987 was the year in which the global cake shortage made the world go crazy.

Such has been the extent of the hush-job that most people don’t even realise that it happened. But I do. As a man who loves a bit of cake it is etched into my brain. You might ask why I haven’t spoken out before but I saw those who tried to speak out and what they did to them. I’m no fool.

Ask the workers of the Gateax factory in Finglas who were required to come to work every day but instead of making delicious swiss rolls and the like they merely sat around doing crosswords, playing chess and discussing the issues of the day, such as ‘Would Ireland qualify for Euro 88′ and Johnny Logan’s success in the Eurovision Song Contest, a source of much pride for the country at that time.

If you went into the supermarkets you could find no apple pies, no battenburg, no tiramasu, no black forest gateaux, no chocolate cake, no pavlova, no Victoria sponges, not even a bit of gur cake. Weddings had no wedding cakes - brides and grooms were convinced by those seeking to continue the cover-up that their guests would prefer jelly and ice-cream instead.

I struggled through that year, I have to tell you. Artisan bakeries were strictly forbidden to produce any kind of cake at all and even eggs were rationed to prevent people from making them at home. Finally I could stand it no longer. I thought about who might be brave enough to make this scandal public. Politicians? No. Spineless cunts the lot of them. Priests? Too busy rimming young boys. TV personalities? What personalities?

The only answer was those who were willing to lend their name to any old thing. Pop stars. This was the era of the charity record. Whenever there was any kind of disaster someone assembled a load of singers and made a record about it. Who can forget Bono, Christy Moore and Dickie Rock’s outraged tune at the resignation of Garret Fitzgerald as leader of Fine Gael - The Return of the thin white Dukes?

So one by one I contacted them and begged them to help make the issue public but this was one they weren’t touching with a 10 foot barge pole. Limahl, Paul Weller, Bros, Jermaine Stewart, the lead singer from Living in a Box, Colonel Abrahams, Atlantic Starr, Johnny Hates Jazz, Climie Fisher, Sigue Sigue Sputnik and even Boy George, smacked out his head as he was, all point blank refused to help. Miserable fuckers. Here we were, the cake eating public who had made them famous, asking for a little help and they refused. All we wanted was some off-key singing to some terrible Midge Ure written song and they were saying no.

I kept at it and at it but every time the answer was negative. I was at my wits end. That was until I found one brave soul. One man who would stand up and be counted. Who would rise above. Who would overcome. A man whose insistence on bringing the world’s attention to the cake shortage would ultimately cost him his career. A man who had been riding high in the charts but who would never again enjoy that kind of success. A man who reworked one of his old hits to fit the cause at hand.

So while today you can enjoy all the sweet desserts you want you should spare a thought for him. Without him you’d be cake free and that is no kind of existence for anybody. It may not have been much but his small effort made those who had caused the shortage to think again and go back to withholding grain from African countries instead.

So today, Fergal Sharkey, I salute you - and how right you were,  ‘A good tart these days is hard to find’.

You couldn’t make it up

by Twenty Major on May 20th, 2008

Had to go talk to some people today.

The lady who came to speak to me was very heavy, protruding of belly. Decided I’d break the ice.

“So, when’s it due?”, I asked pleasantly.

She looked at me for just that moment too long. ‘Oh shit’, I thought, ‘I’ve done it now’.

“About two weeks”, she said.

Bad habits

by Twenty Major on May 20th, 2008

I have been a nail biter all my life. For as long as I can remember I’ve chomped my fingernails. And not just my fingernails, I pick and chew the skin around the side of my nails too.

I often eat the skin. Mmmmm, skintacular. But, in all seriousness, I have tried to stop doing it for years as well but I just can’t. I think the habit has become so ingrained now, so much a part of my life, that I barely notice when I’m doing it.

It’s only when I’ve ripped a great big chunk of nail right down to the quick and it hurts that I come to my senses, so to speak. Then you have the classic dilemma - do you keep going, even though it hurts like fuck, or do you leave a big chunk of nail hanging off? The answer, of course, is you keep going. Your finger might be very sore to the smallest touch for a couple of days but you can’t just leave it the way it is. And it’s then you tell yourself that this is stupid, that you should stop.

Honestly, there are times when my little fingers (who bear the main brunt of the nail biting and skin chewing) look like Simon Weston’s face. Not pleasant. And I think to myself ‘You are a grown man. You can simply stop doing this. Yes, I shall prevent myself from ever biting another fingernail again. In fact nom nom nom nom … oh shit, I’m eating my finger while thinking about stopping!’.

It certainly ruined my hopes of being a hand model. I used to look at that ad for that cream when I was young. Remember the one. The lady who had the dry hands and she had a leaf which crumbled when she closed her fist on it. But not after using whatever cream it was, the leaf was supple and merely sprong back to its normal shape after being crushed. That kind of advertising career would never have happened for me as people would have ignored the springy leaf and just ‘Oh sweet Jesus, look what that cream does to your fingernails’.

I remember other people who bit their nails putting this stuff on them which apparently tasted foul if you bit them. I always thought that was a bit pointless. Why not just dip your hands in shit?

I suspect that I could become a heroin addict, give up, and still not have the willpower to stop biting my nails.

“Hello, my name is Twenty Major, and I’m a Nailoholic”.

Not a Nailerzoholic though, that’s a different ailment altogether.

The headphone makers are making a fortune

by Twenty Major on May 19th, 2008

I was in HMV on Grafton Street today to purchase a new pair of headphones as the ones I have are utter crap. I only bought them a few weeks back while on my travels but they’re shite. Sony headphones suck.

Anyway, today I replaced them with a much better pair of Sennheisers. However, there were 5 people in the queue ahead of me and 4 of those people were also buying headphones.

That seems to me to be rather a large percentage of people buying headphones. I may start my own headphone company.

I’ll call them Earhymens.

It’s my right

by Twenty Major on May 19th, 2008

“I think you should”, said Dirty Dave, “it makes perfect sense to me”.

“I agree”, said Jimmy.

“But it’s madness!!”, said Stinking Pete.

“What’s so mad about it?”, I asked. “If you think about it surely we’ve evolved to the point where it’s quite reasonable to accept that there is a lot of negativity in the world and instead of just harping on about peace and love we have to be realistic and embrace it instead.”

“But what you’re suggesting is ludicrous”.

“All I’m saying is that if people had an outlet the world would likely be a better place”.

“An outlet is one thing but what you’re proposing is rather more than that, don’t you think?”

“I just believe that everybody in the world should get one kill, free, easy and with no comebacks”.

“Can’t you see how wrong that is?”

“Not really. For example, if somebody does something to somebody you love, instead of the expense and rigmarole of courts, lawyers, appeals, jails etc, you simply kill them, problem solved”.

“But then what if one of their family wants to kill you back as revenge?”

“But they couldn’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because of the code.”

“What code?”

“The code of killing. If you have a good reason to kill somebody then none of their family or friends can claim you back unless you do something to another one of them which would entitle them to murder you.”

“You’re mad. And have you thought about extinction?”

“What do you mean?”

“I know the odds on this are slim but what if each person on the planet killed someone until there were just two people left alive and they were two men or two women and then the human race would die out?”

“That can’t happen. It’s not like everybody would be killing at the same time. People might go their whole lives without killing anyone. It’s just an option you have if you want it.”

“Would it be transferable? For example, could you bequeath your kill to your son if you were to die without using it or sell it on to a gangster for a load of cash?”

“Don’t be silly.”

“What’s silly about it? I don’t think you’ve even thought this through at all. How could you have? Have you even considered the consequences of this? Have you thought about how this goes against our nature? About how it’s inhuman? Do you think that after years of trying to tell people they have to be good, of trying to install a moral compass in even the most degenerate of people, you could then turn around and tell them they’re perfectly entitled to kill one person without causing utter mayhem?”

“I’ve considered the consequences of killing someone.”

“Oh yeah, and who would you kill?”

“You.”

“Me? Not Damien Rice? Not Phil Collins? Not Bertie Ahern? Not a traveller, a refugee or an orphan? Me? Why me?”

“You ask too many fucking questions”.