The United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has today announced that its scientists have discovered a time/space anomaly that appears to be centred around an area of central Dublin, Ireland. Addressing a large press conference, NASA scientists stated:
“We became aware of the fact that time seemed to move much slower in one particular part of Earth than anywhere else. Ordinary things that take months in other places, like parliamentary investigations, reforming politics or investigations into corruption, seem to take years in Ireland. We couldn’t explain it, nor indeed could the Irish government, so we began to look into it, and it seems to be some sort of timewarp, a vortex if you will, actually sucking time through it. This has the bizarre effect of making time move much slower around certain parts of Dublin, such as the Kildare Street area and also the Dublin Castle area. There have also been localised outbreaks around Garda Headquarters and the DPP’s office, interestingly.”
Sources within the Irish government have expressed relief at the discovery. “Thank Christ for that. We thought we were just idiots who couldn’t do anything right.”
A further possibility, that a seperate anomaly was speeding up time particularly around the headquarters of AIB and the Bank of Ireland, causing both institutions to lose money at an extraordinary rate, was dismissed by NASA.
“No. They’re just shit at banking, and really good at spending other people’s money in jig time.” Sources told us.
Sinn Fein’s Jonathan O’Brien TD (CNC) is quoted in today’s Irish Times on the subject of a visit by the British Queen:
“Amid indications of a possible visit also to Cork, newly elected Sinn Féin TD Jonathan O’Brien has said the queen is not welcome in the city and that his party will be organising protests if she makes an official visit. “If she comes to Cork does she plan to apologise for the burning of the city under her grandfather, George V? Or the reign of the last monarch to visit Cork, Queen Victoria, during which a million Irish people died of famine?” He added that the British monarchy was based on a set of values which he believed most Irish people did not share.”
When I read stuff like this, or stuff from loyalists wanting to relive every PIRA murder, I always think: Enough already. Can we move on please? We have all agreed a settlement, you know. I wonder, should the British and Irish governments not just sign a final “Total Apologies” document, covering everything we did to each other, once and for all. Or is the demand for apologies lark too much like a sore tooth to Sinn Fein, that they just love to poke with their tongue no matter how counter-productive it is?
In other news, I see that President Obama’s visit may be only a couple of hours. Bad political move, I would have thought. Surely it will not do the president any harm, as he approaches re-election, to be seen being cheered in a country that most middle Americans regard as being, well, normal?
Will Jonathan O’Brien demand that President Obama apologise for the US government tolerating slavery for so long, I wonder?