Posted by Jason O on Feb 15, 2012 in
Not quite serious.
The ballcock must yield, through me, to the will of the French People!
President of the French Republic Nicolas Sarkozy has stunned the French political establishment by stepping out from his hectic schedule of media appearences and making grand vague speeches full of intangible undeliverable promises to fix a broken toilet in a school he was visiting in Nantes yesterday.
The talented son of a Hungarian immigrant who had a meteoric rise to the Elysee Palace had just finished delivering a speech promising that France would have a man on Mars by Christmas when the headmistress of the school casually made a remark about her toilet being broken.
” This will not do! Let us examine the situation!” The president declared, where he then proceeded to lead a delgation into the bathroom, and removed the cover of the cistern. After a quick examination, he removed his jacket, rolled up his sleeves, and proceeded to readjust the ballcock which had become loose. A quick test flush revealed that the toilet was now fixed, and after a round of applause during which the president washed his hands, he departed, announcing his hope to bring peace to the Middle East before dinner.
Posted by Jason O on Feb 14, 2012 in
Not quite serious.
- She can buy her own Manolos, thank you very much.
And in honour of the day that is in it:
It’s the sympathethic grimace and the tilt of the head to one side she can’t stand. The look from her (married) friends and older relatives, in response to her “No” to their “So, is there anyone special at the moment?”. That pained “Don’t worry, it’ll happen” look in their eyes. Followed by the “You’re sure you’re not being too fussy? After all, you’re not getting any younger” look.
What they can’t, indeed refuse to understand, is that she could possibly be happy on her own. At her age! Sure, she’s got her own place, a good job, and a career, and goes on holidays to places that they just can’t get to what with the kids and everything, but still, she can’t possibly be happy!
What they can’t understand is that she has actually crossed over the tipping point, from being one of those women who thought that maybe a man could give her what she wanted to being a woman who balks at the sacrifices she’d now have to make. She’d have to change, and maybe not go to the hotel she wants to go to in Manhattan and maybe not see what she wants to see, and for what? Well, there’s the obvious, but she can get that anyway.
But she also gets the Saturday morning in bed reading and sauntering around the house in her Bananarama tee-shirt and doing her thing. If only someone would invent an escort service that does interior decorating, DIY and a bit of plumbing on the side. Put up them shelves, a bit of a giggle in the afternoon, and you can go now, “Nurse Jackie” is starting. Is that so much to ask?
Posted by Jason O on Feb 13, 2012 in
Not quite serious.
Over the breakfast bar, love?
He kind of fell into the job. He’d been with some mates in the Hampton Hotel on Grab-A-Granny night, caught the eye of an aul wan showing more skin than Katie Price, more orange than Peter Robinson, and with her 2012 5 series outside, courtesy of her ex-husband, he’s back to the townhouse off Morehampton Road for a scoop-fuelled knee trembler. He wakes up in the morning, shudders at her ReadyBrek glow on the sheets, and is then shoved out the front door by her as she settles down for “Midday” on the telly and two Neurofen, but not before she pats two €50s into his shirt pocket “for a taxi”.
He’d been out of work for a while, and suddenly, there it was. The hotels and nightclubs with a more “mature” clientele were identified, a new suit and a bottle of Paco Rabane was purchased, and he was away. Sure, some of the old dears, God bless them, had thought that their wily charms had done the trick, but a quick request “to borrow a hundred quid” had clarified the matter. He even left a card with them, just in case. 12 months later, he had a list of regulars and was pulling in about €800 a week, notes in the hand, never you mind Mr. Revenue Man.
Of course, there were overheads. He’s in the gym everyday, and is visiting six different doctors to get the magic blue pill, which even he needs after a busy schedule. He could swear after one mad day he’d seen smoke emit from his member. Some of his clients liked a bit of spice, a visit from the scruffy plumber with his tool belt and “don’t forget to bring some pipe!”
Then there’s the husbands, whether they’re arriving home from Aintree early or sitting in a wardrobe in nothing but rubber gloves watching (that’s an extra €25). He’s never had a problem, at least, not yet. One husband, who opened a broom cupboard to find him bollock naked save for a cowboy hat, looked him up and down, said “rather you than me, mate”, and fecked off for a round of golf and one freshly minted “Get Out of Jail Free” card.
Are there side effects? Funnily enough, he hasn’t suffered any STIs, as the aul wans tend to be careful. Having said that, he has the fight the feeling, when he’s with his own girlfriend, that he’s giving away free stock.
He touts himself as a straight talker, man of the people and enemy of the establishment. Except when he’s working for RTE or the biggest media groups in the country. On the radio, he’s scathing of public figures until they appear on the show, where the sound of him performing fellatio upon them can be quite stomach churning. And don’t let him talk to anyone vaguely famous from across the water: He’ll pull that “You and I have been long enough in this game…” lark in a nauseous attempt to put himself on an equal standing with people who have no idea who he is.
In short, his slogan should be quite simply: I say the establishment disgusts me, but I have my price. Which is probably a good thing, given the amount of Columbian marching powder he vacuums up on a weekly basis. His anti-establishment credentials are best summed up by the theme of an ad that once appeared in a newspaper for a phone sex line: “I’m not gay, but I think the guy sucking my cock might be.”
Posted by Jason O on Jan 30, 2012 in
Not quite serious.
The key to illicit excitement.
It wasn’t like they had planned it. He was single, out of a messy relationship. She was married with two young kids and a husband who was not by any accounts a bad guy. It just happened. They met at a work related social event, and their eyes, yeah, that corny moment actually happened. When two people look at each other without a word, without even having met each other, and they knew that they wanted each other.
Her boss had introduced them, and they had been careful not to show too much interest in each other, but both knew. When the event had broken up, both had slipped away to another bar in the hotel, and talked, both pretending to be more drunk than they actually were to allow for the excuse of the first kiss.
Her hand had shook in giddy excitement as she had phoned her husband to say that she’d be late, trying to find a little glimmer of anger over his casual acceptance that his wife was giving such a feeble excuse for being late, but she knew the answer. He trusted her, the bastard. In the room, it was like being a teenager again, hungrily wanting and being wanted. When she got home, her husband was snoring his head off and the kids were tucked in.
She had resolved that it had been a one off, a moment of weakness, but it wouldn’t go away. They had met again, her determined to end this before it escalated. He understood, and respected her decision, which made it all the harder, and the reason they ended up in another room again.
How will it end? Will it peter out, the danger finally outweighing the pleasure and the excitement? Possibly, but please, a tiny voice says in the back of her head, don’t let anyone fall in love.
Posted by Jason O on Jan 28, 2012 in
Irish Politics,
Not quite serious.
- Might as well have been left empty.
He surprised everybody, including himself, by getting elected first time out. His supporters were ecstatic, and his quirky personality and bolshy beliefs convinced them that they had elected someone who could, if not make a difference, (Who can, in our do-nothing parliament?) at least stand up and say a few things that needed to be said.
Once inside, however, he changed. The money, more than he had ever made before, overwhelmed him, as did the lifestyle. When asked to speak on issues that he had always been sound on before, he started saying things like “It’s complicated”. What was worse was that whilst that was true, he’d actually lost his bottle. He was now a “member of the parliamentary party” and had to “look at the big picture”. The last straw was when he actually voted against an opposition bill in favour of something he’d always supported, saying vaguely that the government would be introducing its own legislation “at some point in the future”. He doesn’t know when. When a member of the same parliamentary party rebels on the same issue, votes in favour of the opposition bill, and gets away with it, and gets plaudits in the media for not being afraid to stand up, it makes Him look like a tool.
As the general election approaches, he’s in full panic mode, trying to scrape his supporters together (whom he has hardly seen since the last election) and talking about the old stuff, but they’re all so busy and the kids are sick and “you know.” He feels bitter and betrayed and let down. Funnily enough, so do they.
He doesn’t get within an ass’s roar of a quota.
Bizarrely, he gets a Taoiseach’s nomination to the Seanad, where he spends his days watching the clock run out whilst he tries to squeeze every penny from expenses that he can, knowing full well that the game’s up and he’ll never darken this place’s door again.
Posted by Jason O on Jan 28, 2012 in
Irish Politics,
Not quite serious.
We're goin' to need more handcuffs.
The Director of Public Prosecutions has issued millions of warrants for as yet unnamed non-Irish nationals in connection with the reckless borrowing of money and purchasing of property in Ireland which created the massive collapse in the Irish economy in recent years. A source in the DPP’s office remarked: “It was only after the uproar over the Taoiseach’s remarks in Davos about Irish people being responsible for the state of the Irish economy that we realised how vast the conspiracy was. This is bigger than Roswell, JFK and even Shergar put together. The fact is, millions of people entered Ireland, borrowed huge amounts of money they could not afford to repay, signed up to mortgages and credit card bills they could not afford either, and then fled the country leaving the poor blameless Irish people to carry the can. The bastards.” The DPP also suggested that his office would, later in the week, issue warrants for the arrest of millions of non-Irish nationals who had engaged in massive election fraud in at least three Irish general elections, electing governments that carried out policies in direct contravention of the wishes of the Irish people, who apparently had their votes removed from the ballot boxes and destroyed in a massive and secret operation.
Posted by Jason O on Jan 27, 2012 in
Irish Politics,
Not quite serious. 
Every party has them. If they weren’t members of the party, they’d almost certainly be members of a cult, parroting out phrases about the need “to ascend to the third echelon of the mystical giraffe” as opposed to supporting “a democratic socialist 32 county republic” or ” to roll back the strangehold of the state which is the single greatest challenge facing the Irish people.”
You can then watch their lips actually dry as they stare unblinkly at you, waiting for your response, any response, to permit them to trot out another memorised slogan. Parties are like that, not too sniffy about who they let in with all the entry requirements of a Bangladesh brothel.
Of course, the saddest thing is that one of these guys is far more useful to you than ten fellas who have memorised every episode of “The West Wing” and want to help you with ”Strategy” and “Spin”. You can send him out, safe in the knowledge that he’ll deliver to 500 houses diligently as long as you buy him a Club Orange and a packet of Tayto in the pub later, and listen to him repeat, word for word, your own sentences back to you. Hey, that’s what wins elections. Just don’t let him talk to any voters, for the love of Jesus. If the mindless prattle doesn’t turn them off you, the snot caught in his eyebrow will.
Posted by Jason O on Jan 27, 2012 in
Irish Politics,
Not quite serious.
Vote for Colgate!
People he was in school with always answer the same way: “He’s a what? A member of parliament? HIM??” It’s his gorgeous teeth you first notice, gleaming at you from his poster. The mammies love him on the doorsteps, and the daughters quite fancy a nibble too. He’s a good looking young man, well disposed to all, by all accounts just lovely.
It’s only when you speak to him do you realise that he knows nothing about politics, and isn’t even that interested. You could hand him an opponents’s speech to read and he wouldn’t know the difference. He just loves being well known, and if it wasn’t Dail Eireann it would be The X Factor or playing Buttons in the Gaiety Panto or a boyband. It’s quite possible that’s what he thinks he’s doing anyway.
And yet, you can’t hold it against him. He’s just getting on best as he can. You have to wonder what it says about Irish politics that there are 8500 people who bother to go to the polling station, and so recognise that voting means something, and yet in the polling booth choose the direction society should go in based on whether their chosen candidate is suitable to be freeze-dried and stored behind glass as the emergency backup member of Westlife?
Posted by Jason O on Jan 15, 2012 in
Irish Politics,
Not quite serious. 
It’s not the same as having a pen-name, or being a whistle-blower for whom invisibility is a necessity. There are people who post under a pseudonym for various reasons, and whose identities are clearly known. They make no effort to hide their identity, and openly acknowledge their identity when asked.
Then there’s the anonymous blogger. Opinions? He’s got plenty of them, and they are all staunch. Whether it is calling for Ireland to immediately rejoin the UK, or expressing delight in the deaths of British soldiers, there is no holding him back. No fence sitter he. He’s the king of the finger jab, and is quick to dimiss thousands as easily labelled “West Brits” or “Thatcherite Scumbags” or “Immigrant scroungers”. He’s a hard man.
Safely behind his keyboard, waiting for his mam to make him his tea, that is. But when he’s in work, he’s the guy that woman ignore and that other men make jokes about. Forthright? In work, he wouldn’t say boo to a goose. And God forbid he ever met an actual British squaddie. He’d destroy his trousers before he’d evern publicly vent the vitriol he posts nightly on the political boards.
Yet, it’s hard to hate him. Those anonymous tracts are all he is. He has nothing else, his youthful hopes and dreams dissipated as his peers achieved around him and he grew into the grey, middle-aged forgettable entity that he is. One day he’ll die, and five months later, someone on a board will ask “Whatever happened to TruePatriot147? He normally has something to say on this kind of thing” then they’ll move onto something else, not even aware that they have actually written a man’s epitaph.
