Good for them
by Twenty Major on July 17th, 2008
I like the story about a Page 3 girl being turned down by two cancer charities after she offered to raise money for them.
I’m just guessing here but I suspect her offer involved her getting her norks out in public. Both the Marie Keating Foundation and Breast Cancer Ireland said ‘no thanks’ to someone called Claire Tully.
‘Get your breasts out for breast cancer’, wheeee. How fucking original.
I hate this idea that somebody taking their clothes off is a reason to donate to a charity. See you, you firemen cunts, nobody wants to buy your calendar just because you’re showing off your well-muscled, ripped, six-packed bodies, glistening with sweat and … erm … you know what I mean.
There was an ad for PETA (who we know are utter fucking cunts) a year or two ago where a lady spoke on behalf of the utter cunts and while she was doing that she stripped naked. As if her being naked somehow added validity to what she was saying. ‘Oh look, I’m taking my clothes off - that’s how much I believe in this cause’.
Actually, all it does is make you and PETA look like attention seeking cunts and cheapens what it is you’re trying to get across. The fact that you were trying to make PETA appear reasonable and decent is besides the point. It’d take more than some naked chick to make me change my views on those cunts.
How many times have we seen the calendars though? That people seem to think they, or their charity, should be rewarded because they’re brave enough to take their clothes off and have their picture taken. In actual fact the rest of us should be paid by the charity for post-traumatic stress disorder after seeing fat, ugly people in the nip.
By all means raise awareness for charities, I’ve got no problem with that (although I never give money to charities apart from Parkinsons Ireland as their collectors do this wicked dance), but leave your fucking clothes on.
Sinking feeling
by Twenty Major on July 16th, 2008
It must be absolutely crap to be a chicken and realise one day that you are amongst the tastiest animals on the planet.
I bet badgers look at chickens and laugh their tough, untasty holes off.
They took ouurrrrr juuuuuurrrrbs
by Twenty Major on July 16th, 2008
Some stuff on Newstalk this morning when they spoke to Conor Lenihan, Minister for Kebabs, about how the economic downturn has caused more racism.
I tend not to listen to the radio too much early in the morning as it makes my brain hurt. It’s bad enough the rest of the day when I’m awake but too much at an early hour is not good for me. Still, I generally put it on while I’m waiting for the kettle to boil.
Last week the Newstalk breakfast show sent a ‘roving reporter’ to a dole office in Dublin’s inner-city to ask them if they thought foreign workers were denying Irish people work. What they broadcast was something akin to poor satire.
‘Ah yeah, dem furreners are takin’ all de jobs, you know? Dey come here and dey do work and dere’s no work den for de Irish people who pay all de taxes. And de udder ting, right, is dat de furreners are claimin’ all de benefits an’ all. And who’s payin’ for dat? We are’.
Honestly, not only are the foreigners taking all our jobs, they’re claiming all the benefits too and not paying any tax. Talented bunch, aren’t they? Working, tax dodging and signing on. Good job no Irish person would ever do that.
Anyway, they had another three or four people at that labour exchange bemoaning the fact that the foreigners in Ireland had ALL the work. One lad, who worked in construction, said there was no work in construction. The girl asked him if he’d try and get work doing something else. His reply?
‘Nah. You mean work in a deli, like? Nah’.
And there’s the thing. The last 10 years have seen Irish people leave what they consider the ‘menial’ jobs, generally those in the service industries, to foreign people. Would it be an exaggeration to suggest that 75% of people who work in shops, bars, restaurants and hotels are all foreign? I don’t think it’s far off.
We were too good, all of a sudden, to do this kind of work and now that it looks like we might have to leave our snobbery at the door it’s the foreigners who are to blame. Fuck those cunts for coming over and working hard, the inconsiderate bastards.
Anyway, the point really was the Newstalk thing. When real life starts imitating South Park you know you’re in trouble.
Paudge Behan - linguistic genius
by Twenty Major on July 15th, 2008
Oh, this is fucking awesome. Found via Jazzbiscuit check out Irish ‘actor’ Paudge Behan, arrested in connection with an eldery woman in Italy, trying to speak Italian.
It’s quite possibly the funniest fucking thing of all time.
Update: Here’s the MP3 of his wonderful Italian. Come on you remixing bastards, get cracking.
Paudge Behan speaks ‘Italian’ - direct download
Irrelevant testimony
by Twenty Major on July 15th, 2008
I heard something on the radio last week about politicians and councillors and such getting involved, on a regular basis, with court cases. They write letters providing character references for people they barely know, if at all, to curry political favour.
It’s a fairly shameless activity but one which doesn’t raise too many eyebrows simply because it’s politicians who are doing it. Don’t mind kissing babies, they’d fuck babies if they thought if would get them some more votes.
What’s interesting is that people provide testimony for others accused of serious wrongdoings. Yesterday a writer called Desmond Hogan admitted to the aggravated sexual assualt of a 15 year old boy. To quote the Irish Times:
Sgt McCarthy said Desmond Hogan retreated to the bedroom and placed the boy on the bed face downwards and sexually abused him. The assault continued in the bedroom for some time, the sergeant said.
Not much left to the imagination there, is there? So Hogan admitted to this yet his publishers, Lilliput Press, represented by a man called Anthony Farrell, said that he was a man of ‘utmost probity’.
Do you see much decency or morality in what he did or what he was accused of doing? Why would a man make himself look so foolish by standing up in court and testifying to another man’s character when it is completely at odds with the evidence and the facts.
Farrell said Hogan was a writer with an international reputation. What does that have to do with him sexually assaulting a teenager? What is the relevance? Should we think ‘Oh, he’s a man of international reputation. He couldn’t be bad. Famous people don’t do that kind thing’?
Then there was testimony from fellow writer Colm Tóibín who said Hogan was a writer of ‘of immense power and importance who dealt with human isolation’.
So fucking what? I couldn’t give a shit what kind of a writer he is because it has absolutely no bearing on anything.
‘Your honour, I would like to testify that the accused is actually a wonderful artist and has painted some quite haunting pictures, which demonstrate an artisitic talent that is both mature and unique’.
‘That’s all well and good, but Mr Hitler killed 6 million Jews’
To me it just looks like pure obfuscation, trying to deflect the court away from the real issue. Perhaps Desmond Hogan is a writer of international repute, perhaps he does write with immense power, but those facts, such as they are, are completely inconsequential. The real issue is the sexual abuse of a young man.
I understand sticking up for your mates, we all do it, but sometimes you have to admit that your mate is a bit of a prick and he has to take his medicine without your help.
Esperando como un zorro
by Twenty Major on July 14th, 2008
Once upon a time there was a man trying to do a deal. He thought it would be complicated and protracted but amazingly everything went like clockwork.
Then, at the 11th hour, it was discovered a document was needed. The man was assured this document would be forthcoming in no time at all. It was not no time at all, it was some time indeed. Then that document raised questions which required further documentation to be required, plus the opinion of an expert. Once again the man was assured that this would not create any hold-ups and the deal would progress without much delay.
Three weeks later the man is sitting, still waiting for that documentation and, had he not had it all shaved off yesterday, he would be pulling his hair out of his head.
As it is he is wondering why we don’t solve the prison overcrowding problem by allowing frustrated men waiting for documents to beat an inmate to death. Overcrowding not as overcrowdy, man’s temper assuaged by solid thrashing administered to prisoner.
But still he waits.
In Ron’s
by Twenty Major on July 14th, 2008
As you walk into Ron’s the semi-retangular bar is in front of you, a tattered Dublin 1977 GAA poster, signed by Ron’s great-nephew Anton O’Toole, barely clinging to the wall these days. There are some round tables with wooden chairs and a snug over to the right hand side which is usually occupied by by old Charlie who sips his pints, reads the papers or a book and pines for his old dog. The bar has a red patterned carpet which has great black stains on it from when the fabric was soiled, burnt, scorched, stained or otherwise damaged. It is not the brightest bar you’ve ever seen.
The right hand side of the bar, as you look at it, is where Paddy and Larry sit drinking their Guinness with Jameson chasers. You know, they’ve been there as long as I’ve been coming to Ron’s. They’re part of the furniture almost. You don’t pay much attention to them until one of them isn’t there for some reason then it’s like something vital is missing from the room. Up on the wall just to the right of them is the TV which is only on during football matches and every evening for the 6 o’clock news on RTE 1.
Ron lives behind the bar, there’s a door to his ‘office’ through which you can go to the fully enclosed back yard where things have happened down the years that don’t bear repeating. Well, not unless it’s over a pint or two and we’re reminiscing. Not for Ron the fancy arrangement of bottles behind him. It’s basic but he has what we need. Vodka, Rum, Gin, Whiskey, a grappa for Lucky and other stuff is kept underneath in a cupboard that only he has the key for. There is no shiny array of taps. Just, from left to right, Guinness, Smithwicks, Heineken and his one nod to the modern era, a Czech lager that we practically begged him to get in. He says Czechs make good beer but he wouldn’t get in any other foreign brands, especially not from Eastern Europe. ‘How can you trust them after all they did?’, he says and we nod in agreement. It’s his bar, isn’t it?
The bar is hard wood, scarred and scratched and worn like a pair of tramp’s shoes but somehow he manages to get a shine off it every day. The glasses are as you would expect. Pint pots, no fancy designer tankards, slim jims for the spirits, smaller wider ones for the whiskey and some shot glasses which are only used whenever Ron deems it appropriate. After the Folkapalooza adventure he got them out but ask him for a Jaegerbomber and he’ll look at you like you asked him to suck your shit covered cock.
Splodge sits facing the Guinness tap, Lucky to his left. Stinking Pete and Dirty Dave take the next two places which takes you to the corner of the bar. Jimmy sits the other side of the corner and I next to him. Beside me on the bar is an ashtray and an old style money box which claims to be collecting for the Whitefather Missions in Africa. As far as I know nobody from the Whitefathers has ever come into Ron’s. I have no idea how much money is actually in it. From my seat I can see pretty much everything, the front door, the tables which, night after night, remain unused as Ron’s doesn’t seem to generate, or welcome, new custom.
Behind me, and slightly to the right, are the toilets. A trough style urinal for the pissing and two cubicles which are fully enclosed as Ron appreciates his customers, if they want to move their bowels, don’t want to have to worry about being overheard or people looking at their underpants as they wait patiently by their ankles during business time. There’s a heavy ceramic sink, a bar of Imperial Leather on a soap dish, and pull down towels to dry your hands. Ron doesn’t believe in hand dryers, he says they’re too noisy.
I drink in Ron’s most nights. We sit and we talk and we drink pints and we argue and fight and make jokes and tell stories and smoke and so much that’s happened in our lives has taken place here it’s almost like home. My stool has my shape, the bar slightly dented from where I like to sit with my knee pressed against it, and I wonder sometimes how much of my life I’ve spent on this stool.
Sometimes I wonder how much longer I’m going to spend on it.
On the plus side …
by Twenty Major on July 11th, 2008
…I now have a funky new iPhone.
Blah gah and meh
by Twenty Major on July 11th, 2008
What’s the saying? Opinions are like arseholes, everybody’s got one.
Perhaps it needs to be upgraded. Blogs are like people’s opinions, every arsehole’s got one.
It is a wonderful medium at times. It allows anyone to have a voice, speak their mind, posit their lunatic thoeries, tell you what they had for dinner or anything else. On the other hand though there really is a large amount of chaff to sort until you get some wheat.
And what if you don’t like wheat? What if you’re a celiac? How do you enjoy the best of blogs then?
Dirty Dave was threatening to set up a blog the other night in Ron’s. He wanted to put up pictures of himself and his empty marmalade jar collection which now amounts to 4 jars. He just started it last week. He likes marmalade without the rind in it though so you can hardly call him an orange aficionado.
I managed to talk him out of it saying that we really do have enough crap blogs as it is, one more might upset the delicate balance that exists. When he asked ‘What delicate balance?’, I struggled to find an answer and told him to just shut up and get the pints in.
If embarrassing details of his personal life were going to be shared with the world it’d be me doing it.
I’m not sure where this is going. I think the weather is depressing me. Relentless grey does have an effect on your mind. It’s so miserable you think about watching a Mike Leigh film to cheer yourself up.
‘Oh, rain again! Yee-haw. Now, let me think about my loved ones being crushed to death by Godzilla then eaten by a rabid Mary Harney because that’s more uplifting than looking out the window’.
Maybe I need to paint sunny scenes on my windows like they do in cartoons.
The smears of bird shit could be clouds.
It’s a politician’s life
by Twenty Major on July 10th, 2008
“Now, as you all know the country is on the brink of a recession, jobs are being lost, interest rates are rising, consumer confidence is down, foreigners are taking all the work, the health service is fucked, crime is on the rise, industrial pollution is threatening communities and property prices are plummeting.
But I can assure you this government will do everything in its power to turn things around. We will explore every avenue, no stone will be left unturned to find a solution and we will make things better.
In about eleven weeks time. Now, where are my speedos?”