Help, my mind has a mind of its own.

Have you ever wanted to completely destroy your own life? No, me neither, and if you ever do, I suggest that you seek medical help with great haste. However… I do occasionally find myself thinking about how easy it would be, with one single moment of absolute madness, to deleteriously alter the course of my entire life forever.

Whenever I travel on the DART, I always walk right down to the very end of the platform. I prefer the front carriage because it’s usually less crowded and rarely populated by knuckle-dragging scum or pensioners. At Dun Laoghaire, the platform becomes quite narrow at the end, and there’s usually somebody standing precariously near to the edge. I don’t know about you, but I sometimes think of how easy it would be to shove them onto the track, right in front of a train. Even a slow-moving train, pulling into the station, would undoubtedly cause serious, probably fatal injuries to the hypothetical victim. And I’d certainly end up in prison for a long, long time.

To make matters worse, it doesn’t end there. Upon disembarking at Tara Street, long after one fleeting homicidal thought has evaporated, another - perhaps less dangerous - one begins. Honestly, how easy would it be to push just one person on the stairway, knocking them slightly off-balance, creating a ‘domino effect’, resulting in absolute chaos? I think it’s a testament to my innate decency that, despite having ample opportunity, I’ve never done it.

Now I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “this guy’s a psycho!” Don’t worry - I’m never actually going to push someone in front of a train. It could be argued that it would be a terrible thing to do. I’m never going to push a load of commuters down the stairs in a DART station either. These are just short-lived, dark little possibilities that invade my mind from time to time. I’m 100% certain that I’m not capable of carrying much  of it out. Ok, I do hope we’ve got that clear.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve had this recurring impish little habit of thinking, “what’s the worst thing I could possibly do or say right now?” As a child, Christmas morning was great fun. I distinctly remember one year, while I was delightedly unwrapping my new Super Nintendo, suddenly being overcome by the possibility of hurling it through the television screen, and then telling my then four-year-old brother that Santa doesn’t exist. Instantaneously, an idyllic childhood Christmas would have been destroyed, not just for me but for my entire family. Obviously I would have spent the next six months visiting a child psychiatrist, as my parents desperately sought answers to my wholly unprovoked outburst. It’s equally likely that Christmas would never have been the same again.

Fifteen years on, I still find myself idly pondering silly little acts of self-sabotage, motivated by little more than the curiosity of how I would feel if something bad happened to me. Just a few weeks ago, I spent several hours completing a fairly gruelling Media Analysis essay. On the morning of the submission deadline, just before I printed the nine pages, I found my finger hovering precariously over the ‘delete’ button. If I had deliberately deleted all my hard work, just hours before the deadline, I would have been, to quote Gerald the gorilla, absolutely livid.

I feel compelled to emphasise again that I have never acted upon (m)any of these ideas, lest you believe that I‘m somehow entirely wrong in the brain, and a menace to society. They’re just fleeting, harmless, whimsical little thoughts that usually disappear as quickly as they arrived.
There is one thought, however, that I find very difficult to shake off. Ever since I was a young, fair haired boy, whenever I see a Garda, I’ve always been completely and utterly consumed by an urge to stick my fingers up at him. This is particularly inexplicable, as I feel no ill will whatsoever towards the Gardai. I think they’re great, and should I ever find myself burgled or assaulted, I have every confidence in their ability to sort it all out. It’s just that, when I’m walking down the street, and a Garda crosses my path, I absolutely have to put my hands in my pocket, as I don’t trust myself not to raise my middle-finger at them, just because I childishly want to see what they’d do. I’d say there’s a good chance that they would be pretty annoyed, and would probably give chase, arrest me and have me charged. Or maybe they’d just laugh and say, “Oh, you little rascal, you!” and send me happily along my way.

I suppose I’ll wait until I discover that I have some kind of terminal illness, by which time I should feel less inhibited by the inconvenient concept of ‘consequence’. My equivalent of the ‘Share a Dream Foundation’ will consist of making obscene gestures at Gardai and going to Mass some Sunday so that I can loudly shout “Shut up, you fucking pederast!” And of course, my personal favourite - shouting ‘BOMB’ in a US airport.

God, I love this video…

I’ve no idea what they’re saying, and frankly I don’t care. Although it sounds like he mentioned something about ‘Darfur’, which makes his laughing even funnier.

Jeremy Beadle

Rest in Peace

Outrage at middle-class heroin epidemic

The Taoiseach has today defended the decision to send his aide de camp to represent him at the funeral of an unknown Dublin heroin addict.

Thousands of mourners attended the funeral of the unidentified woman, believed to have died after a heroin overdose in a derelict inner city flat, last month. A massive Garda investigation is currently underway to determine who may have supplied her with drugs.

Dismissing criticism from Fine Gael, Mr Ahern claimed that it was entirely appropriate that he should be represented at the funeral of somebody who touched so many people during her short life.

The high profile death has highlighted the widespread consumption of the drug in post-Celtic Tiger Ireland. Once consumed only by rich celebrities, heroin is now widely available amongst the affluent middle classes, and has never been cheaper.

A recent RTE documentary featured interviews with a wide range of Irish professionals, including three senior government ministers, all of whom confessed to regular heroin use.

Fine Gael have proposed a tough set of measures, guaranteed to deprive all citizens of all civil liberties until the crisis has been resolved.

“It’s an absolute disgrace that you can hardly go to a dinner party nowadays, without seeing people shooting up at the table,” said a senior opposition (Cont. page 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12)

Exclusive Madeleine Interview

For somebody so rarely out of the newspapers, Madeleine McCann is extremely difficult to track down. When I contacted her at a secret location, requesting an interview, she was at first reluctant to speak, but eventually agreed to participate, demanding that her legal representatives be allowed to read the article before publication. Equally reluctantly, I agreed to this request. On reflection, it’s a small price to pay for the privilege of interviewing the world’s most talked-about and sought-after four-year-old girl.

Unless you spent 2007 in a coma, you will no doubt be familiar with the story of the Disappearance of Madeleine McCann (coming soon to a cinema near you). On a Thursday evening in May, middle-class Doctors Gerry and Kate McCann drunkenly returned to their apartment in the Algarve, having left their three young children alone for two months, to find that their eldest daughter had vanished, leaving her triplet siblings to fend for themselves. Strangely, it is rarely reported in the mainstream media that two of the toddlers survived by feasting upon the flesh of the third, weaker one.

And thus, a legend was born. From such humble beginnings, Maddie quickly became a household name, appearing every day on the front page of the Daily Mail, and even occasionally ousting Princess Diana from the Express. Sky News dedicated a section of their website to her, and employed several attractive young journalists to prance around Praia da Luz, making vapid comments about how exhausted/drained her parents looked, as they cheerfully went about their daily business, basking in the sun-soaked limelight.

Curious about their indifferent demeanour, I ask Maddie about her parents, and their reaction to her disappearance. Lighting up a Marlboro Red, she says that ‘they’re in on the whole bloody thing’, adding that she’ll make a fortune out of this. And she most certainly will. At the tender age of just four, Maddie is halfway through writing her autobiography, and has signed a deal with Heat Magazine for photographs of the actual birth of her first child (due in August). Production of ‘Maddie Dolls’ is already underway in a Taiwanese sweatshop, and her parents have signed a deal to present a medical reality series on Channel 4, where they will perform major cardiac surgery on perfectly healthy celebrities. To cap it all off, Maddie’s siblings, Sean and Amelie have signed a deal with EMI to record a cover version of Katie Melua’s ‘Call off the Search’, perfectly timed to coincide with Maddie’s planned return. It will also be the soundtrack to the forthcoming movie.

The return could be potentially tricky, as the general public tends not to enjoy being cynically conned. Maddie isn’t at all phased by any potential backlash: ‘Darling, the plebs fucking love me. They’ll just be so relieved to see me back that they’ll forget about the whole conspiracy bullshit. Besides, the media are on my side – and that’s all that matters.’ It’s true that the tabloid media has been complicit in the affair, and will ensure that ‘Brand Maddie’ goes from strength to strength, filling the void left by the disgraced Jade Goody. In case of a public backlash, plans are already afoot to generate extra sympathy. ‘Oh yes, we’ve decided that I’ll probably develop bipolar disorder some time around mid-2009′.

What about Robert Murat, I ask, referring to the winner of the 1999 International Paedophile Lookalike Competition, and top suspect in the disappearance case? Apparently, he’s in on it too, and has planned to return to Britain to work as a gameshow presenter on Challenge TV.

I ask Maddie about the media’s coverage of her case. It’s been criticised by some as being unnecessarily over-the-top. Maddie disagrees, however: ‘Everything’s gone pretty much to plan, except I’ve been pissed off with that fucking picture that they keep using. There’s loads of pics of me, which are far better than that one. Yes, I’ve got a gammy eye. So fucking what! Stop going on about it, bloody hell!’

And with that, one of her bodyguards entered the room and told me it was time to leave. We exchanged pleasantries and Maddie was whisked away, apparently to a new secret location. I have a feeling that this is just the beginning of the Madeleine McCann story.

Credit where it’s due…

Yes, his Eurovision entry was pretentious and downright woeful. Yes, he has consistently been one of Ireland’s most vocal cheerleaders for the Iraq invasion. Yes, he believes that secularism, liberalism and feminism are the main causes of depression and suicide among young males. Yes, his Katy French article was quite possibly the worst piece of journalism ever published in an Irish newspaper (hell, yes…). However, John Waters wrote a very sensible article in Monday’s Times, which I think deserves at least a smidgen of praise.

The article concerns the imminent release from prison of Wayne O’Donoghue, jailed in 2005 for the manslaughter of Robert Holohan (or “Little Robert Holohan”, as the tabloids insist on referring to him, lest anybody forget that he was 11-years-old at the time of his death).

After being released from Portlaoise Prison, O’Donoghue (or “Child KILLER O’Donoghue”, as the tabloids insist on referring to him) will, according to reports, instantly leave the country. Waters argues that, having paid his debt to society, he should not be forced into exile, on the basis of an unproven allegation made by an angry grieving mother, and fueled by bloodthirsty, paedo-obsessed tabloid newspapers.

 

A number of media assaults on O’Donoghue were reminiscent of lynch law, the vindictiveness of some commentators providing an abundance of evidence that elements of the Irish media are now so out of control that the legal system’s recent shift towards victim-centred thinking can in certain instances result in the destruction of the civil and human rights of an accused.

None of which alters the fact that his Katy French article was an absolute literary car-crash, but (to put it disingenuously) John Waters appears to have experienced a rare moment of lucidity.

What the…

Below is a screenshot from this blog’s statistics. It tells me how many people have been viewing, when they viewed, how they got here and whether they did so through a search engine (and what search words they used).

Fair enough about searching for “gay autoerotic asphyxiation” (whatever floats your boat, and all that. I’m sorry if the content here didn’t meet your expectations), but why would anyone want to do a Google search for “pat kenny” + Hitler? I don’t get it.

Thinking of sponsoring a child this Christmas? Don’t!

I heard on the radio that some guy won the X-Factor Final last night. I have no idea who he is, and I’d really prefer it to stay that way. Like his predecessors though, he’ll probably get the Christmas No. 1. However, with your help (yes, you!), the bland, talentless nobody could be kept off the top spot. You may have heard about a campaign to get Tom Waits’ classic, ‘Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis’ to No. 1 for Christmas.

I usually hate these “let’s get this unlikely song to No. 1″ campaigns with a passion. It’s childish, it’s not big and it’s not clever. Yes, fair enough - you got Larry Gogan to confusedly introduce The Cunting Wankstains’ latest single, Hitler Caressed my Great Aunt’s Hole on his Saturday afternoon show. Congratulations, but you’re still a giggling little interweb nerd. However, the ‘Waits for Christmas’ campaign is a worthy exception, and I implore you to buy the single (it’s only around a Euro) on Apple iTunes, Eircom Music Club, Sony Connect, EasyMusic or Wippit.

With just a few thousand sales required to get a song to Number 1 in Ireland, your Euro could make a huge difference. So, buy the single, tell your friends to buy the single, and together, we can stick two fingers up to the record companies and their tedious manufactured crap.

Fight da powa!

John Waters: The vomit that dissolves the glue that holds the Irish Times together

I met John Waters once. Well, when I say that I ‘met him’, what I actually mean is that I passed him on Lower George’s Street in Dún Laoghaire. He was walking rather quickly, wearing a long, elegant, black coat. In the gentle coastal breeze, the coat, along with his long, greying hair blew freely as only his could.

It was the only time our paths crossed, but it got him into my head. And God, he was beautiful. I don’t mean just physically. It’s plainly obvious that anybody who can introduce quotes from Czechoslovakian politicians and phrases such as, “archipelagic icicles” to the Eurovision Song Contest possesses a form of beauty which emanates from deep within. I’ll say it again: From deep within.

He believed that anything was possible. And his depressing frown and long, hangdog face convinced you, for an instant, that he was right. Back in February, when I first heard Dervish performing his masterpiece, “They can’t stop the Spring” I didn’t think for a single moment that it sounded at all like a lament at a tinker’s funeral. I didn’t think that, in Helsinki in May, we were going to finish last, with five points, courtesy of Albania. How could I have known? How could anyone?

Like most people, I spend every weekend looking forward to Monday morning, when John Waters’ column appears in the Irish Times. When I purchase my copy of the paper, I find it difficult to hide my nervous anticipation. What will John’s article be about? Will it be another not-at-all misogynistic tract about ‘feminazis’ and men’s declining place in society? Or will it be an embittered rant about the dangers of secularisation? I am crying as I write this (as is the baby Jesus).

John Waters is a personification of our fears, of our sense of what we are becoming. He is a meteorite of curmudgeon, plodding through the Irish zeitgeist. You may dismiss his articles as bitter polemics, but only, with respect, if you think in clichés and fixate on the superficial. Driven by angelic recall, whatever that is, he plods on clay feet into the mire of three-dimensional reality. He does not know, is not conscious, that his appetite is infinitely greater than the world’s capacity to satisfy it. I have no idea what any of that means, but Christ it sounds earnest. Each and every one of his columns is like a search for meaning in places inaccessible to us mere mortals. Through John, we acquire means and freedom beyond our wildest. Through him, with him. In him. I’ll say it again… No, no, I won’t…

An entertainer who touched everyone he met

Pat Kenny: The broadcaster and entertainer Pat Kenny, who has died aged 59 was an extremely charismatic man and one of the finest raconteurs this country has ever produced. Described by one critic as a national treasure, Kenny was famed for his quick wit and unpredictable nature.

Born in Dublin in 1948, Pat Kenny was abandoned by his parents and brought up by wild cats. The young feral child slowly learned to communicate in a series of grunts and squeals, and it wasn’t until the early 1960s, when he was a teenager, that he finally learned to walk on his hind legs and uttered his first words.

Armed with his new-found ability to walk and talk, sometimes managing to do both at the same time, Kenny decided to enter the world of showbiz, performing three nights a week as a drag queen in a north Dublin brothel, regularly frequented by such luminaries as then-Taoiseach Sean Lemass, Archbishop John Charles McQuaid and significantly for Kenny’s career, Gay Byrne.

Gaybo quickly spotted Kenny’s talents, and persuaded him to abandon his transvestism in favour of a radio career. It wasn’t long before jealousy took hold, and Gay Byrne, embittered by Kenny’s success, began to descend into a life of crime.

Eventually, in May 1999, Byrne was sacked after indecently exposing himself to the audience of the Late Late Show. Within seconds, Pat Kenny was negotiating a €7million contract to succeed him. His urgency to take over as host led to Gay Byrne referring to Pat Kenny as “that cunt” for the next eight years.

Pat Kenny’s tenure of the Late Late Show was controversial, and resulted in record numbers of complaints to RTÉ and often to the Gardai. On twenty-seven separate occasions, ambulances were called to the studio during the live recordings and there were two fatalities.

Owing to his love for his job, some commentators have said it is fitting that Kenny’s tragically premature death occurred live on television, while he was, in characteristic style, performing a risky act of auto-erotic-asphyxiation, nailed to a cross and naked with an orange in his mouth.

Pat Kenny: Born January 29th 1948; died November 20th 2007