A Scandinavian tale

by Twenty Major on May 1st, 2007

As I’m sure you all know I’m a very well travelled and learned kind of person. I’ve lived here and there but not everywhere because that would be fucking impossible. And there are places I wouldn’t live such as Sierra Leone, Albuquerque, any small town in central America and Balbriggan. However, I’m pretty much open to the rest of the world.

Not so long ago I had a great idea for a book which I was convinced publishers would go for. Without even attempting to run it past anyone, so convinced was I of the worthiness of this project, I took myself off to Sweden where the book would be based. I won’t go too much into the story in case I run out of ideas for my current book and I have to revert to this dusty old manuscript (Sssssh, don’t tell Hodder) but it was basically a buddy story involving novellist Henning Mankell, former Arsenal player Anders Limpar, Ingmar Bergman and Agnetha Fältskog from Abba.

The idea was that each of them received a fancy invitation to a party but when they arrived at the party location each person was called into a dark room where a mysterious voice reminded them of a dark and possibly disgusting secret from their lives. They were told they had 14 days in which to get the northern mining town of Malmberget at which point they would receive further instructions.

They could only travel in an unreliable VW camper van which, because it was quite unreliable, broke down a lot. Each person knew every other person had a secret and as the journey progressed relationships grew and they tried to discover what was what. The differences in characters made for some comic moments. For example, Bergman was really quite shy but he took a real shine to Agnetha but Anders Limpar being a practical joker dressed up in her clothes and it was only when the film director felt the unusually stubbly chin that he realised he was French kissing the footballer. Then there was Henning Mankell arguing with Limpar about whether or not Bjorn Borg could have beaten Ivan Lendl in a game of Trivial Pursuits with the novellist going so far as to say Borg could have beaten Jesus at arm-wrestling.

As these things do it was to end in tragedy but I can’t tell you how or why or when. You’ll just have to wait until the book comes out and you can learn their secrets and the lengths each one of them would go to protect it.

Anyway, I felt Sweden would be the natural place to write the book. It’s people, landscapes and cold weather would inspire me, I thought. I stayed in Stockholm for a while then went down to Malmo before settling in a small town called Osby back up the way a bit. I figured the slightly warmer climes there would be better for me as I took some time to recover from frostbite of the mickey when I took a piss outside at 3am on my way home from a bar. My piss was frozen in mid-air and my helmet went blue. Not much fun, let me tell you.

Anyway, in Osby I found myself working brilliantly. With nothing much to distract me I made the initial notes for my book and then spent the next three months writing it out long hand with pencils. I was very aware of keeping back ups so I used carbon paper. I didn’t want it to be a case that there was only one copy in case something went wrong. After proof reading and correcting it was time to type it out on my trusty old typewriter.

I went into the town to buy some typing paper and bought two packets at the local stationary shop. When I took it home though there was something a bit funny about it. The paper had a really, really odd smell and the ink from the typewriter didn’t seem to stick. I went to another shop and bought some more paper but it was the same. Another shop - the same. At this point I was at my wits end. Even though lots of people in Sweden have good English I seemed to be in the only town where they spoke English like the chef from muppets. I didn’t know what to do.

I decided to take a walk to try and clear my head when who should I run into but Annie Lennox. I nearly jumped for joy. Everyone knows a drunk Scottish person speaking English sounds exactly the same as fluent Swedish so she could help me. I ran over to her and explained what was going on, about my book and the problems I was having with the strange, almost sticky, smelly paper.

“Ach, don’t worry about that. Everyone knows”, she said, “that Swede reams are made of cheese.”

The best covers band in Dublin

by Twenty Major on March 12th, 2007

Many years ago myself, Jimmy, Dave and Stinking Pete decided we’d fulfill all our musical ambitions by setting up our own band. We soon realised that we were no good when it came to writing songs of our own so we figured doing cover versions was the way to go.

Jimmy played the drums, Stinking Pete was the guitarist, I had one of those keyboards that looked like a keyboard-guitar (naturally I had a very thin leather tie on too) while Dirty Dave, despite his filth and unspeakable stench, has the voice of an angel so he was the singer.

We rehearsed in Jimmy’s garage and soon we had all the hits sounding as cool as the original artists. From ‘Hold me now’ by The Thomson Twins to ‘Wishful thinking’ by China Crisis to ‘Solid’ by Ashford and Simpson we were smooooooth, let me tell you. We asked Ron if we could do a night in his bar but he told us to fuck off and hit Stinking Pete in the head with one of those old soda water dispensers.

So we asked around and eventually we got a landlord so desperate for anything to bring extra custom in he gave us a shot. We got some flyers printed up in Prontaprint and plastered them around the area and soon there was a great buzz about our first gig. The band was called The Separated Bags on account of how difficult it was, back in those days, to separate supermarket plastic bags.

Now, we were all confident performers but Stinking Pete suffered a bit from stage fright. He was a very accomplished guitarist though and had been taught many years previously by Jose Feliciano, the famous blind guitarist. He told Pete he’d never seen a talent like his but not even such supportive words from such a great strummer could help him overcome his nerves.

At one jazz club performance Pete was so nervous he fingers kept slipping off the strings and he inadvertently invented acoustic death metal. Jose Feliciano was most upset to see his protegé suffer so badly, knowing that unless he could overcome his stage fright he’d never reach his true potential. One day he handed Pete a small bottle and told him that he should use the precious liquid inside to coat his fingertips before each live performance and they’d never slip again. When Pete asked what it was he was reluctant to tell him what it was but when pressed he revealed he’d stuck a needle into his own eyeball and drained all the liquid out of it.

“What do I care? I’m blind already!”, he said. So, whenever Pete had to play live he used some and it always helped him calm down.

So, our first gig went reasonably well. There were a good few people there including BP Fallon and Niall Stokes from Hot Press (who got bottled in the back of the head because some woman said his ’stupid curly fucking hair’ was blocking her view) and the reaction we got was great. Our version of Wordy Rappinghood by Tom Tom Club had everybody talking. Soon we were pulling in the crowds and while that was great we had some problems as the more people that came the more nervous Pete got.

One night he felt the effects of the magic liquid wearing off and in the middle of Golden Brown he ran off to apply some more. Afterwards I was furious.

“You couldn’t have waited until the end of the song?”, I shouted.

“No. I’m sorry. I was going to poo in my pants. I was touching cloth, Twenty.”

The very next gig the same thing happened. We hadn’t even got to the chorus of Bette Davis Eyes when he chucked down his guitar and ran off stage again. We carried on as best we could but his funky wah-wah pedal made the song. This was crazy. Again I had a big row with him and he promised he wouldn’t do it again.

But wouldn’t you know the next gig, with even more people despite his madcap antics, the very same thing happened. Right at the crescendo of Living in a Box the cunt fucked his guitar off the stage and ran shrieking to the dressing room for his priceless fluid. We got through the rest of the night ok but this time he had the three of us giving him grief.

“You better get a fucking grip or I’ll shove that guitar up your hole”, said Jimmy.

“Stop being such a fucking fanny”, said Dirty Dave who was revelling in the limelight as the singer in Dublin’s best covers band and didn’t want to lose the little appeal he had.

In retrospect I suppose that did nothing to make him feel less nervous and when we got word on the grapevine that there’d be some VIP guests at our next gig he was an absolute bag of nerves. When he peeked out on stage and saw Mike Murphy, former Miss Ireland Olivia Treacy, Terry Hall from the Fun Boy Three, Martin Fry from ABC and John Craven from John Craven’s Newsround - amongst all the other special guests - I swear you could see the bulge in the seat of his pants as his turtle’s tail emerged.

I knew I had to do something or the gig would be a total shambles but what? Then it came to me in a flash.

“Pete, where do you keep that vial that you need so badly?”

“In my soon to be retro foldover satchel. Why?”

“No time for why, just shut up.”

So I ran off and got the stuff, another small bottle and a ball of twine. I shared out the solution between the two bottles and then all I had to do was attach them to him so if he felt like he needed it during the performance he didn’t have to run off stage. It was devilishly simple in its devilish simplicity. With the gig just moments away I ran up to Pete and lashed the bottles to the insides of his elbows with a double highwayman’s hitch.

“There you go!”, I said.

“What the fuck is this?”, he replied.

I looked at him a moment before speaking.

“Eye juice tied in your arms, tonight.”

The tomb of Jesus

by Twenty Major on February 28th, 2007

Can you believe James Cameron saying he’s found the tomb of Jesus? Firstly, you’d have to think the leader of the Tory party would have more important things to do, and secondly, if it really was the tomb of Jesus then it would surely have been much cooler than an old stone box. This was the son of God, for fuck’s sake. It would have been totally pimped with satin cushions and a DVD player in the top of it so he could watch the box set of Twin Peaks as he was waiting to rise again.

Theologians, architects, church elders and pretty much everyone else has dismissed the whole thing as a ludicrous piece of PR designed to get people to watch the documentary he’s made. It alleges that Jesus had a son called ‘Judah’. Preposterous. Being a man of taste and a forward thinking deity he’d have called his son ‘Wayne’ or ‘Colin’. Judah sounds way too much like Jew. Or Yoda.

It put me in mind of the time I travelled to Egypt with Jimmy the Bollix and Dirty Dave. We were over there for a bit of a jolly, to watch some illegal camel racing as the Dubai tour hit the Alexandria flats and to do a bit of a repair job to the nose of the sphinx, something we never got around to.

Anyway, Jimmy and I went on the almighty piss and didn’t notice that Dave had wandered off somewhere. After a few days and it become obvious that he wasn’t around to fetch stuff for us we began to get a bit worried. Conscious of the fact people get kidnapped and blown up there quite a bit we became slightly worried when we didn’t see him for another week. We were just about to get in touch with the police when he came back covered in dust and bits of old rock.

“Where the fuck have you been?”, I asked.

“Come quick! Come quick!”, he said.

“What’s going on?”

“Well, I decided I’d do a spot of exploring and I found a hidden door at the side of one of the pyramids. On further inspection it led to a tunnel and when you pulled a lever, which looked like one of those dog-bird things, it opened into a chamber and in there was an enormous coffin. Using my rudimentary knowledge of hieroglyhpics I deduced that I was in the presence of someone important. Some more poking around and a quick unravelling of a mummy or two and I figured it out. I’d found the final resting place of Egypt’s most famous pharaoh. Come look!”

So off we went to check out Dave’s discovery. As usual it was a complete let down. After a brief inspection it became obvious it wasn’t what he thought it was.

“Dave, you cretinous spanner”, said Jimmy. “Look at this inscription here. It says that this is the sarcophagus of a very, very fat Spanish woman.”

“Oh, what?”, he said.

“Yeah,  this is no pharaoh. This is the tomb of Two-ton Carmen.”

Something fishy

by Twenty Major on February 6th, 2007

Once upon a time there lived a flat fish called Evan. He wasn’t like the other fish though. He was always a bit of a rebel and tried to do things differently.

Each morning he and his brothers would get up to go to school with all the other fishes.

“Hey”, he’d say to his brother Paul, “let’s go over to that fissure where the water is hot and bask a bit.”

“No, Evan”, he’d reply. “That’s where the squid hangs out and he loves to eat fish like us. It’s too dangerous.”

“You’re such a cowardy custard”, replied Evan. “I want some danger.”

He was an inquisitive little fish too, always asking questions of his parents.

“Dad, what’s down there where the water gets really deep?”

“Monsters, son. Strange fluorescent monsters with eyes on stalks and more tentacles than a room full of octopuses. Whales too. Great big whales who just open their mouths and swallow you up.”

“And what about over there amongst those rock formations?”

“Eels, son. And stingrays who don’t care if you hunt crocodiles or not. And Manta Rays who are always hungry and looking for a snack and they love little fish like you.”

“And what about where the light shines near the surface?”

At this his father grew serious.

“You can never go up there son. It is a place without water. Instead they have a dry substance they call air. This air will get into your gills and kill you. As well as that there are disgusting bipeds up there who would cut you open, pull your guts out, chop your head off, stick a smelly bulb inside you, cover you with salt then bake you in a place called ‘the oven’ where the air is as hot and dry as a camel’s flange. Promise me you will never go there, son. Promise me!”

“I promise, Dad”.

“Good lad, now lend your mother a fin with the dinner. I’m starving. I hope it’s seahorse again. Mmmmm, seahorse.”

Now, those of you reading who have children of your own will know that the best way to make a child interested in something is to expressly forbid them from having anything to do with it. And so it was with Evan. He became obsessed with the land above and sought out those who knew about it.

He went from one old wise fish to another and each one of them told him the same thing. That if he went there he would surely die and that his life was sub-aqua with his family and friends.

One day though he met a flying fish. They were highly regard by all the others as they could leap out of the water and when they weren’t being pulled out of the sky by a castaway and fed to a Bengal tiger they could look around them and see what was going on. It was well known that they had lots of information about what went on above the surface.

“Hey”, he said to the flying fish. “Can you tell me what happens up there?”

“Sure kid”, said the flying fish, whose name was Arnold. He went on to describe in vivid detail everything he’d seen. Islands, lagoons, rock formations and even the strange bipeds his father had warned him about. The only problem was the fact he couldn’t get up there. No matter how close he swam to the shore he was unable to get out of the water and onto the beach.

Once again though Arnold was able to help him. Every day after school Evan would race over to Arnold’s crevice and take lessons on how to jump up and out of the water. At first he was given exercises which made him waggle his tail fin and swim fast. He was impatient though, saying to Arnold “When do I learn to jump?”

Arnold replied, “Better learn balance. Balance is key. Balance good, jumping good. Everything good. Balance bad, better pack up, go home. Understand?”

Soon though he learned to focus on the job at hand and before long he was making mighty leaps through the air and back into the sea. He practiced and practiced until he became expert and then he knew it was time.

One morning having just left home he confided in his brother what he was going to do.

“I’m going to jump so far and then I will be where no fish has been before. The excitement, the danger, I’ll make history. People will know my name all over the sea. I’ll be famous. You can be my manager.”

“Please don’t do it!”, cried Paul. He knew his brother and realised that he hadn’t thought about how he was going to get back. He had visions of him flopping backwards and forwards as the poisonous air dried out his gills. “You’ll die, I don’t want you to die.”

“There’s nothing you can say to stop me, Paul. It is time for me to face up to my destiny. I will soar through the air and once I hit the land I will feel mighty. Then I will come back and claim my position as the world’s greatest ever fish.”

Paul knew now his brother had lost his tiny little mind. He tried to stop him again but his pleas fell on deaf ears. He knew he needed help and raced back home to get his father.

He swam as fast as he could and explained the situation as they swam like lightning back to where he’d left his brother but it was too late. As they neared the shore they saw something moving as fast as a bullet, silver glistening as the sun’s rays came through the water. Then with a flick of his tail he took off out of the water and landed thirty feet on the beach, never to be seen again.

“We were too late”, sobbed Paul, distraught at this loss of his sibling. “Evan is a plaice on earth.”

Not in my pub

by Twenty Major on November 22nd, 2006

So there we were in Ron’s last night, watching a bit of football, drinking some pints of Guinness, discussing important political and socialogical matters and generally being high-brow and erudite and not at all awful when in walked Stan Ridgeway.

“Hey, aren’t you Stan Ridgeway who had a big hit with that song ‘Camouflage’ then disappeared never to be hear of again?”, asked Stinking Pete.

“I certainly am, you big marine”, said Stan before ordering a pint for himself. A few moments later he stood up and said, “Excuse me, fellas. Nature calls. I’ve got to go logging, if you catch my drift!”

And off he went. When he came back he skulled his pint and left without so much as a word.

“How odd”, said Ron and turned his attention to the football.

Not 20 minutes later in walked the lead singer from The Buggles and he ordered a Jack Daniels and coke.

“Hey!”, said Dirty Dave, “if video killed the radio star the internet has like ..erm… double killed and eviscerated the video star!”

“True enough”, said the lead singer of The Buggles before adding, “Every time I drink a Jack Daniels and coke my bowels clench like I’ve been out on the pints and curry. If you’ll excuse me I’d better go to the men’s room because I’m touching cloth here.”

He came back, finished his drink and fucked off again.

“That’s very strange and a bit annoying”, said Ron who was happy enough because Celtic were beating Manchester United. It’s not that he’s a Celtic fan but he hates Manchester United.

About half an hour after that the door opened again and who walked in only Oran ‘juice’ Jones.

“Hey, Oran ‘Juice’ Jones”, cried Dirty Dave, “it’s a shame you’re not with some friend of yours on a wet night because then I could say ‘I saw you (and him) walking in the rain!’”

“Christ, Dave. Is that the best you could come up with?”

“Not to worry”, said Oran ‘Juice’ Jones, “I hear it all the time. Now, can I have a pint of Guinness and a shot of Middleton’s please?”

Ron gave him his drink and we sat around shooting the breeze, as you do. Then Oran ‘Juice’ Jones said, “I love Guinness but it doesn’t half go through me. I’m off to the jacks to give birth to a brown baby boy!”

So off he went, did what he had to do, then quickly finished his drinks and left. Not even a ‘See ya, lads!”, the rude fucker.

“Right, that’s it!”, said Ron. I’m sick of those fuckers coming in here and taking advantage. From now on those fuckers are barred.”

“Which fuckers?”, asked Pete.

Ron looked at him like he was Wayne Rooney’s scrotum.

“Those fuckers, Pete. Those one shit wonders.”

Jimmy in the kitchen

by Twenty Major on November 7th, 2006

Not many people know that Jimmy the Bollix has a son. His name is Jimmy Junior and he is the progeny of Jimmy and the girl from the Bangles called Michael.

She was a red-headed lady and Jimmy was always a sucker for them. As I’m sure you all know he spent some time in America in the past and this was around the time when the Bangles were at their peak. He ended up doing security for them on one of their tours and had to turn down the advances of the very sexy Susannah Hoffs because he was already smitten with Michael.

Michael, despite her name, was all woman in such a way as to make Lisa Stansfield herself seem masculine, and she and Jimmy embarked on a torrid affair for the duration of the tour. It came as a big shock to him when she revealed she was pregnant just before Jimmy was due to fly back to Ireland.

Even though he is a total and utter cunt Jimmy is not a complete cunt and he has endeavored to stay in Jimmy Junior’s life despite the great distance between them. Sometimes the young fella comes over to Dublin and we entertain him by running over travellers, giving beggars coins that they can’t spend anywhere and drinking pints of Guinness. To be fair he wasn’t really able to handle them till he got to about 9 years of age but he’s a grand lad for the pints now.

There isn’t a birthday, Christmas or other important event in the kid’s life that passes without his Dad sending a present or being involved in some other way. He’s still good pals with Michael herself and recently went over when she phoned him up and told him she was being stalked by Dolph Lundgren. Jimmy did what Rocky Balboa couldn’t do at the first attempt and knocked him into the middle of next week even as Grace Jones tried to tear his eyes out, the mad cunt.

Last time he came over though Jimmy Junior wanted to learn how to cook. As I’m a master chef Jimmy sought advice from me. I came over to his place the night before Junior arrived and went through a variety of recipes with him. Indian, Chinese, Italian, Thai, French, Japanese, there wasn’t a thing he couldn’t cook by the time I was finished.

As it turned out the young fella wanted to cook Chinese food. Jimmy went through the various things I had taught him but Junior was having some problems with his stir fry. His vegetables just weren’t crunchy enough and his prawns weren’t sizzly enough.

Having paid close attention to my lessons the previous night Jimmy knew it was a problem of technique. As I said to him:

“Jimmy, the best Chinese chefs are total fucking spastics. Seriously, they are idiots of the highest order. To be able to cook as well as them you have to become one of them, be like they are, act like they act”.

With that in mind Jimmy went about telling Junior how to sort out his stir-fry woes.

“Listen here, Jimmy Junior”, he said, “your Uncle Twenty was round here last night teaching me how to cook this stuff and here’s what he said. He said all Chinese chefs are foolish and act like cretinous simpletons in the kitchen. If you want to cook like they cook you have to be the same way. You have to act like a moron or a nincompoop or a gobshite of some kind. Once you get inside their minds and behave like a halfwit, pinheaded loon your Chinese food will be as good as anyone else’s.”

Little Jimmy, always willing to please and happy to learn, looked at him slightly puzzled. He nearly had it.

“I almost understand what you mean, Da. Almost.”

Jimmy thought for a minute then it was like a lightbulb went off above his head.

“It’s easy”, he said, “Wok like an eejit, son!”

Once upon a time….

by Twenty Major on September 8th, 2006

Many, many years ago I had to get out of Ireland for a time. There are generally people after me for various reasons but this time there were too many people after me for too many reasons.

Now, I’d seen plenty of lads with other lads after them who thought that going to the UK would protect them. Off to London or Birmingham they’d go, find the Irish community, start hanging around with them and then they’d get found and dealt with. I did not want to be dealt with. I had to let things cool down and I had to go far away to make it happen.

So I took myself off to California where I spent my time surfing, drinking beer and smoking some very good grass. Being the personable chap you know me to be it wasn’t long before I made friends. I started hanging out with two Canadian guys who were crazy scientists and spent their days trying to fashion artificial eyes for people who had had their own pecked out by a crow or were perhaps blind from some other unfortunate event like, erm, birth or something.

Me, Arnold Wudden and Max Idbeen became great pals. As they were completely crazy it was a lot of fun to go to the beach with them, get stoned, get drunk and listen to them fart on and on with their wild theories.

Some of them included:

- Hot and cold do not really exist. They’re both just a state of mind. I disproved this by setting Arnold’s feet on fire.
- God had to exist because only God could dream up the concept of fjords.
- Space and time could be measured by using cat’s poo and half a pound of plutonium painted yellow

Crazy. Their main endeavour was their optical project though and they spent a lot of time dreaming up new peepers in all kinds of different styles. There were coloured eyes, rotating eyes, flashing eyes, any kind of eye you could think of. It was quite an expensive thing to do though and they would go down to Hollywood often to try and raise funding from various celebs preying on their vanity to attain the funds.

“What if”, I heard them suggest to a youthful Warren Beatty, “you were in bed with a beautiful young actress and in the throes of passion her fingernails punctured both your eyes? Firstly your acting career would be over and although you might still pull hot chicks you won’t be able to see them because you will be blind because that other hot chick sliced your eyeballs open and all that white goo came out. However, if we get this thing off the ground we can simply replace them with a brand new set of baby blues”.

That got them a cheque for $3,000. And Beatty wasn’t the only one. Jack Nicholson, Clint Eastwood, Jack Lemmon, Barbara Stanwyck, Robert Mitchum and Ursula Andress were all contributors to the fund which kept the project running and kept the three of us in booze and hallucinogenic smoke.

Then one night we were out and we ran into Brian Wilson from the Beach Boys. He was a tremendous drinker and we ended in some place on Sunset Boulevard drinking shots of tequila with Phil Spector and Stills from Crosby, Stills and Nash. That was some night, let me tell you. Wilson introduced us to LSD and we laughed at stupid things, saw things we shouldn’t have, stared at our own hands like it was the most fascinating thing we had ever seen and at one stage we thought the street lights were following us because as soon as we went past one he was right in front of us again.

Later that morning, still buckled, we went back to the Canadians’ place to keep the party going. They had a cupboard full of booze bought with celebs money. So we went back, got comfortable and got stuck into delicious pints of beer topped with wine and grenadine with a sprig of mint and a chunk of fresh lime. Oh, how we laughed. We told stories, jokes, anecdotes, wisecracks, rib-ticklers and quipped about hilarious world events like JFK’s assassination, the Hiroshima bomb and Pearl Harbour.

After a while we noticed Brian Wilson was gone. Somehow knowing that rock stars and drink and drugs and swimming pools don’t mix we went out to the back garden expecting to find him face down but he wasn’t there. We searched the house and eventually found him in the lab where the boys conducted their experiments.

“All right, Brian?”, I said.

Wilson said nothing. He was transfixed. He was looking at what they’d been making, at the blueprints, the notebooks with all the various computations and chemical forumlae. He picked things up, fondled them, smelt them, held them in his hand like you’d handle a new born kitten, he looked like he loved them.

After a while he spoke.

“Man, this is far out. I’ve never seen anything like this before. What you guys are doing is revolutionary. It’s inspired. Think of the people you can help, the people who will be able to see again because of the brilliant work you do.”

“Cheers, man, eh!”, said Arnold.

“One question though. What do you call them?”

“Well, we haven’t quite come up with a name yet”, answered Max, “but we’re thinking Wudden Idbeen Eyes!”

Brian Wilson ran out of the room straight away. We never saw him again.

Jimmy in Tibet

by Twenty Major on June 23rd, 2006

Not many people know Jimmy the Bollix is a true humanitarian. Honestly. Whenever there is a natural disaster Jimmy volunteers with the crew from Concern to help the people affected by the tragedy. He’ll dig through the rubble for hours looking for survivors or their priceless heirlooms.

Some years ago he went to Tibet to see if he could find a way of getting the Dalai Lama back in instead of the Chinese who were ruining the place with their laundries and take-aways. He actually spent some time there practicing Buddism and living a simple life amongst the ordinary people of the country.

He learned their language and worked as a simple farmer working mostly with livestock. After some time he noticed that one of the typical Tibetan ox in his herd would stamp his feet in rhythm when Jimmy sang his favourite tunes such as ‘I got you’ by Split Enz or ‘Love plus one’ by Haircut 100. He then had me send him over a ghettoblaster, lots of batteries and as many Now That’s What I Call Music albums on cassette that I could get my hands on.

Soon the ox was boogying and getting down with great gusto altogether and it wasn’t long before people came to hear about it. In no time at all there was a great show every Friday night when Jimmy would play tunes such as ‘Love ressurection’ by Alison Moyet and ‘Solid’ by Ashford and Simpson. The people didn’t necessarily enjoy the tunes but they loved the sight of this beast kicking it in what we would now describe as an old school stylee but back then it was perhaps a primary or a kindergarten manner.

Now, Jimmy knew he was on to a good thing here. He began to charge a small entry fee and because he was a decent promoter and not like some shyster who claims to have DJs from Ibiza at his club nights when in reality it was some bloke from Kilmainham whose sallow skin made him look Spanish he taught the ox some new routines so it wouldn’t get boring.

To amuse his ever growing numbers Jimmy taught the ox the safety dance, the funky chicken, the Charleston, a merengue, two different rigadoons and a tarantella. It became the most popular night out in all Tibet.

Then one night it was said that a powerful tribal leader was going to come to the performance. His seal of approval could have seen Jimmy and his dancing beast crack the insular but lucrative Tibetan cabaret scene. Think Braemore Rooms crossed with the Moulin Rouge.

It was make or break stuff so Jimmy took the week off work. His arable farming was shared amongst his colleagues who eagerly wanted him to do well. He rehearsed for hours that week and made sure that all the moves, all the steps, all the shimmies and shakes were spot on. And his animal chum couldn’t have been better. When he tells this story he’s still amazed at how uncannily accurate the dance steps were.

So the big night came. The people were buzzing that night and not just because they’d been drinking imported Burmese rum. The first couple of songs went really well and then there was a bif of an accident. Somebody spilled a great big jar of Tibetan beer, known as Tibetan beer, all over the animal. When it happened the great beast threw himself to the sawdust floor and rolled around to dry himself off making the two hour grooming Jimmy had given him entirely redundant. Still, it wasn’t about looks. It was about the music.

Then the powerful leader came in with his entourage and settled down in the VITbNtDL (Very important Tibetan but Not the Dalai Lama) area. The time had come. Jimmy knew he and his chum had to impress. He readied himself and brought out his big tune. The one they’d practiced to the most. The one that sent the people wild when they saw the grooving that went on.

Yes, it was Matt Bianco’s ‘Get out of your lazy bed’. The first notes rang out. The people cheered. They knew what was coming. Except this time something was different. Their enthusiasm waned as the dirty hairy beast pogoed around the dance area in ways that surprised even Jimmy. Out went all the moves he’d been taught and in came shuffles and sidesteps and some headbanging and jumping like when somebody plays ‘Black Betty’ at a school disco.

Everyone was agog, nobody more so than Jimmy. He was just transfixed. He couldn’t turn off the music. Everyone else was the same and the powerful leader who had come to see this animal do the moves everybody had told him about sat slack-jawed, not believing his very eyes.

Three minutes and twenty-eight seconds later the he song came to an end. The creature stopped moving. There was silence in the room. Pure, unadulterated silence. Eventually the powerful leader shook his head, looked across the room and spoke to Jimmy.

He said “There’s a mangy yak, mangy yak on the floor!”

“I know”, said Jimmy. “And he’s dancing like he’s never danced before.”

Lost

by Twenty Major on May 5th, 2006

A good few years back, must be 25 or so, me and Jimmy and another mate of ours, Bob, went to stay with this bloke who had hired us to do a job. His name was Jean-Hugo Le C’arville and we’d taken somebody who had crossed him to his palatial estate near St. Etienne in France. What happened to him I don’t know but there was a lot of screaming and drilling and sawing and setting stuff on fire one night.

While there we feasted on the best French cuisine as our host had his own chef, who came with three Michelin stars, and drank wonderful French wines including a bottle of 1973 Château Mouton Rothschild with a label designed by Pablo Picasso. Of course the French people in the little town were very French and they didn’t really understand us. Although I am a fluent French speaker my Dublin accent made things a bit difficult for them.

“Ooohvray la fenechra!”, I’d ask and it would take me a good few goes before they said “Ahhhh, ouvrez la fenêtre!” then whisper “L’anglais de merde” just loud enough for me to hear them. The joke was on them though. English, indeed. Anyway, that is just incidental.

Where the fun began was when Jean-Hugo set us a challenge. He said “Mes amis, I ‘ave, in my jardin, a network of ‘edges and paffs frough which you must find your way from one side to ze uzzer! Do you accept zis challenge?”

“What do we get if we complete ‘zis task’?”, I asked.

“I weel pay you fifty-fousand pounds. Sterling!”

I conferred with the lads. There wasn’t much conferring. That was a lot of money back then.

“All right, show us ‘ze way’”, said Jimmy and he did.

So in we went to this labyrinth thinking it would be a couple of hours diversion in the summer sunshine. By 9pm that night we had thought again. This was well before the time when a quick mobile phone call would have solved the problem and with 50 grand at stake we were sure they weren’t going to come look for us. The hedges were around 12 feet tall and there was no way of going through them or climbing on top of them. Now it was dark. ‘Oh well’, we thought, ‘we’ll have to wait till tomorrow’.

Tomorrow wasn’t any better. Or the day after. Or the day after. By day 7 we were starving and staying alive by licking the dew off the ground each morning to quench our thirst. We tried eating the leaves but they were minging. Jimmy ate a worm which took him right back to his childhood but we were in serious trouble.

Poor old Bob was the worst though, a skinny chap at the best of times he was fading fast. Sadly on the 9th night he passed away.

Says I, “Jimmy, this is like that film that hasn’t been made yet about that plane that hasn’t crashed yet with that South American rugby team that hasn’t to eat each other yet. If we want to stay alive we have to resort to…cannibalism!”

“Fair enough”, said Jimmy. “I’m fuckin’ starving”

Just then all the days without food caught up with me and the world started spinning. I got that buzzing noise in my head and the next thing I passed out. I don’t know how long I was out for but when I awoke Jimmy had managed to get a small fire going with some branches from the hedges and it smelt like he’d been cooking.

It was as sweet as smell as I’ve ever smelt. I started drooling immediately. I could taste meat even if it was the body of our former friend. When I made my way over though I couldn’t believe my eyes.

Jimmy was sitting there, like a stuffed pig, licking his lips and gnawing on bones and nothing from the wrist up on either side remained.

“What the fuck have you done?”, I thundered. “You miserable cunt. Here we are, stuck in this maze, starving to death and you eat everything? You fucking cunt.”

“Calm down, Twenty”, said Jimmy. ” I didn’t eat it all. I left you Bobby’s hands.”

*Author’s note - posted on the 25th anniversary of the death of a famous hunger striker. 

A summer holiday tale

by Twenty Major on March 30th, 2006

What is it about rich people and their stupid names? It’s very rare to find the son or daughter of a rich person called Wayne or Agnes or Kylie or Arthur. They all have names like Paris or Mingus or Sailor or Apple or Pilot Inspector.

And so it was when I spent a summer in Florida in the late 80s. I was staying at a mansion owned by former comedian Richard Pryor. We became friends when he stayed in Dublin in 1986 and desperately wanted to get tickets for the Self Aid concert because he was a big fan of In Tua Nua and wanted to, in his own words, ‘plough the arse’ off Leslie Dowdall.

I overheard him asking the porter in the Gresham Hotel if he knew anyone who could sort him out and I’m not the sort of person to let an opportunity pass me by.

“Richard”, I said, “loved you in Stir Crazy and Superman III although I thought Brewster’s Millions lacked that spark to make it a truly funny film.”

“Thanks very much”, he said. “I only did Brewster’s for the money. Motherfuckers paid me millions.”

“How ironic”, I said. “Anyway, I heard you’re looking for tickets for Self Aid. Meet me back here at 2pm tomorrow and I’ll have what you’re looking for.”

And so I did. At that time I had a friend working in Sunshine 101 and he knew the combination to the safe in the boss’s office. Turns out when Robbie Robinson came in to collect his own tickets for the gig he found a half eaten sandwich and my mate’s business card which meant he didn’t work there for long but don’t worry he got a job with Energy 103. Still, we got the tickets for Richard Pryor and off he went to the concert. He never did tell me if he got to plough the lovely Leslie but suggested that she wouldn’t want somebody to love for quite some time.

Anyway, after that me and Richard Pryor became fast friends and I often went to stay with him in his Florida mansion. It was in 1989 when we had arranged a holiday during which we would go shoot some alligators in the Everglades with a rocket launcher that he got a call offering him a big part in a film which he simply couldn’t turn down. Despite having millions of dollars he wanted more but he said I should come over and that I could bring a friend if I wanted.

Jimmy the Bollix was just back from London so I suggested we take advantage of Richard’s hospitality. And so we did. We flew to Miami and drove up in a rental Chevrolet to his house on West Palm Beach. When we got there we were greeted by his son who, in the tradition of rich parents, had a silly name.

“Hi Twenny! Hi Jimmy! I’m DeBoyce, Richard’s son. I’m here to help and show you around and score shit for you and all that.”

And to be fair to him he was a very nice young man, very obliging and attentive to our needs.

“More beer, DeBoyce!” we’d cry from beside the pool and not 60 seconds later he would have commanded one of the servants to bring us some nice cold ones. He was a little more full of get up and go when he had to drive anywhere though. Beer the slaves could bring from inside the house but other stuff needed to be collected and he was more than willing to do that because he’d just taken delivery of one of the very first prototype civilian Hummers. He would drive like a lunatic and people would get out of the way because if they didn’t they’d be squashed. It was a massive contraption.

“You guys want some burgers or something?”, he ask and we liked to be obliging so we’d say “yes” and he’d go speeding off in his massive vehicle to bring them back. Three or four times a day he go on errands just so he could drive somewhere.

So, the night before we were due to leave Florida we went out clubbing on Ocean Drive. DeBoyce knew all the good clubs and he lined a few palms to ensure we got VIP treatment. We got chatting to former Eagles star Don Henley who was an interesting character. He told us all about Glenn Frey’s unpublishable deformity and that he feels like eating his own sick whenever he hears Hotel California. Jimmy told him that ”Desperado” was one of his most hated songs of all time. Henley said “Fair enough, Jimmy. Have a mojito!” What a guy.

Man, that was some night, let me tell you. There were cocktails, beers, wine, spirits, shots and drugs and I think there may have been scantily clad beauties in bikinis but I only remember the important stuff. We caned it. Big time. I barely remember getting home, naturally taken there in the jeep. We got back to the mansion where, just before we all crashed out (Henley included as we’d promised to give him a lift back to Miami the next day) our generous host said he was going to drive off and get some more drinks and possibly another ounce of cocaine for himself. Like father like son, eh?

I woke about 7 hours later and sat up with a start. That was a mistake. My head hurt like somebody had drilled a hole in the top and was pouring sulphuric acid directly into my brain. I looked at my watch. SHIT! We only had 90 minutes to make our flight. I roused the former Eagle from his slumber and then I woke Jimmy who punched me in the face and went back to sleep. I woke him again. He punched me again. This was not good. In the end I poured cold water and hid behind the couch as he steamed around swearing to pull the legs off whoever did that. He’s cranky, first thing.

“Jimmy you cunt! Come on! We’ve only got 90 minutes to make it to Miami airport or we’ll miss the flight.”

“Oh bollocks”, he said as he raced around some more and packed his case in record time. I did similarly and we legged it down the garage and got in the rental car. I pushed the button which automatically opened the garage door and found our way totally blocked by DeBoyce’s massive truck which he’d parked at an almost impossible angle.

“Oh fuck, we’d better go look for him. He must be flat out in his room or something.”

“Ah crap”.

We went running back into the house and we called his name but got no answer. Dead to the world we thought. We checked his room, no sign of him. We checked the room next to his. Nothing. We checked the other 12 bedrooms, nobody. We checked the servants quarters as he’d shack up with the Peurto Rican maid called Jennifer Lopez from time to time but he wasn’t there either. There was only one more place to look. The bottom of the pool.

Oh Jesus H Christ. We’d gone out with Richard Pryor’s son, over induldged ourselves and now his swollen corpse was going to be face down at the bottom of the roast chicken shaped pool. He was going to kill me and I learned not to underestimate him after he told me he’d taken out John Wayne, Keith Godchaux from the Grateful Dead and Minnie Ripperton in a one month spell in 1979 (look it up) after they’d ‘crossed him’. We made our way slowly to the swimming pool, squinting in preparation at seeing the dead body which was going to cost us such a lot. Don Henley was literally shaking with fear. Being in the entertainment business he knew exactly how ruthless Pryor was and what he was capable of.

Imagine our surprise though when we didn’t see a thing. Such relief, let me tell you. There was just no sign of him anywhere on the property and if he was lying dead somewhere we couldn’t be faulted. We went back to the rental car in the garage.

“Fuck, that was close. Smoke, Twenty?”

“Damn right, Jimmy. My heart is pounding.”

“Give me one of those”, said our famous chum. “Mmmm, delicious taste. What brand is this?”

“Major, natch.”

We sat smoking for a while. Eventually I spoke.

“Of course we still can’t get out of here because of that monstrosity in the way.”

“What are we going to do?”

“Just wait, I guess.”

“Till when?”

It was Don Henley who answered.

“After DeBoyce’s Hummer has gone.”