Seven days and one week

A round-up of the week's major news stories as seen through the eyes of an inattentive, misinformed moron.

WAKE UP MAGGIE I THINK I GOT SOMETHING TO SAY TO YOU

First up we had recreational grief and now we have recreational rage. It can be defined as follows; the need to prove that you and you alone are the most angry out of all the world's social networkers. As soon as the news broke the competition began. The Iron Lady had barely breathed her last before the internet was awash with thousands of less than favourable epitaphs. She was a cunt of a woman, of that there is no doubt. But what struck me was the demographic of those revelling in her passing. People that weren't born until long after her reign of terror had ended. People who grew up in parts of the world largely unaffected by Maggie's iron fist. And yet, to them, this was one of the greatest days of all time!

Isn't it a bit crass to celebrate the death of anyone other than the most wicked of beings? Were it Ian Huntley or Peter Sutcliffe who had kicked the bucket I could fully understand the joyous reaction - but a politician? Again I don't wish to make light of her actions, she deprived me of my school milk after all, but surely the time for partying was when she was removed from power? By exulting in her passing and regaling in her demise all we are doing is giving further credence to an era best consigned to history. She's probably loving it you know, all those grimy proles drinking themselves stupid and causing public disturbances, it's what she would have wanted.

REST IN PEACE SAVITA

Is there anything so heart-wrenching as the death of a young person in the prime of their life? All of that hope and ambition wiped out leaving nothing but sorrow and loss. Those affected do all they can to carry on, to piece their lives together and make sense of it all. But in truth nothing will ever be the same again. The Savita Halappanavar case will likely change the face of Irish legislation for years to come but is this inquest really necessary? Her family's need for answers and their desire to take it to the courts is wholly understandable. But perhaps those on the other side of the argument could have saved Satvita's grieving relatives yet more heartache.

A simple admission of guilt, that's all it would take. No more interviews with her solemn-faced widower, no more tawdry headlines detailing the events of her final hours and no more pictures of a smiling Savita in happier times. Because someone was at fault in her death. Whomever he, she or they were is yet to be disclosed. But when the inevitable happens, and an ashen faced member of University Hospital Galway is held accountable for their actions, the end result will be yet more salacious news reports and finite details of this never ending case. All of this could be avoided if only someone had the courage to put a stop to it, if someone had the courage to admit fault in their actions and spare the Halappanavars one more moment of this harrowing ordeal. Sativa's name is already ingrained in our history so let's give the family a break eh?

IRELAND: A LOVELY PLACE TO BE A CHILD

And sure why wouldn't it be? The little fuckers have everything they want nowadays. Oh I tell thee back in my day it weren't like this, oh no. So anyway, according to UNICEF, Ireland is the tenth best place to be a little 'un these days. Who knows how they come up with this shit? But according to the boffins it comes down to a few simple things; food in your belly, fags in your mouth and babies in your tummy. More of the latter and less of the two former that's what we're after and it seems Ireland scores well on all accounts. Our children are now fat little fuckers who neither smoke nor have sex. Sounds a bit boring to me but they're happy and that's the main thing.

The survey goes onto say that one in three Irish kids exercise for at least one hour per day. Well fuckin congratulations! Fair played to ye lads! Dragged yourself away from the cakes and Ipods for an hour? Praise the Lord. Even more astonishingly Ireland scored first in this particular discipline. What the fuck are children in other countries doing? Not much by the sounds of things. And the worst thing of all is that this exercise is probably carried out in some supervised area, an astro-turf pitch, an indoor arena or wherever. Not for this lot the epic games of football which started after your dinner and carried on until either the street lights broke or our mothers came a-calling.

'OLE MAN TROUBLE

Steve Collins is feted as one of Ireland's great boxers, his exploits in the mid-nineties have earned him legendary status and his victories over Chris Eubank will never be forgotten. That The Celtic Warrior fought both Eubank and Nigel Benn when both were past their prime is however, rarely considered, and his decision to retire rather than fight the up and coming Joe Calzaghe further tarnishes his legacy. But, for many Irish people, he is something of a folk hero. So his decision to return to action at the grand old age of 48 is mystifying to say the least. What can he possibly hope to achieve?

If you ask him that question he will tell you he wishes to right some wrongs, to fight the man who dodged him during his previous iteration as a middleweight firebrand. The man in question is Roy Jones Jr, the greatest boxer of the 1990s and one of the sport's most skilled combatants. RJJ, unlike Collins, hasn't even bothered to retire. Despite being the wrong side of forty himself he has continued to fight and has subsequently smeared his own legacy with ugly defeats to fighters not fit to lace his gloves. I stopped watching Jones Jr fight a long time ago, preferring to remember him in his pomp when he was without peer in the sport. But I do hope he beats Collins, firstly because I never bought into the whole Celtic Warrior shtick and secondly because it might knock some sense into the clearly deranged Irishman.

READY OR NOT HERE I COME

And here was me thinking that Osama Bin Laden was the hide and seek champion of the world. He's got nothing on this fella. Twenty-seven years, that's how long Christopher Knight spent living in isolation. For reasons as yet unknown he took himself away from humanity at the tender age of nineteen and there he stayed until his recent arrest by Maine police. His crime? Stealing food. Well what else was he supposed to do? He's a hermit for fuck sake. Rather brilliantly Chris hadn't spoken to another living soul for at least twenty years, preferring to while away his time listening to rock music on his rickety old radio. There was times in my teens when I'd disappear to my room to listen to some angst-ridden rock but I had nothing on Christopher.

The question now is what will become of Mr Knight. Will he return to the woods and carry on his simple existence or, more likely, will he be forced to re-integrate by do-gooding locals eager to see him right. Imagine leaving the world as you know it in 1986 and returning in the present day. Liverpool won the League and Cup double that year, and look at them now! Christopher could probably head into the woods for another twenty-seven years and they still won't have recaptured those glory days. Whatever he ends up doing it is unlikely that anyone will ever break his hide and seek record and for that alone he should be applauded to the rafters.

WHAT WOULD SHE KNOW

Sometimes I overdose on news by listening to the radio and watching 24 hour news stations at the same time. It's not an easy feat, the tones of the radio broadcast permeate your brain and override the message portrayed by the images coming from the TV. This week, during one such news binge, I found myself watching Michelle Obama addressing a hollering and whooping crowd (at least I think they were). The rules of news binging state that you must mute the radio should an interesting piece present itself on the TV, they also state that you must never attempt to form an opinion based on images without sound.

But when I saw Michelle's impassioned speech I obeyed neither rule. My first thought was “What the fuck does she know”? Swiftly followed by “thinks she's another Hilary Clinton does she”? I admit to being only vaguely aware of Mrs Obama's skillset, a lawyer if I recall correctly. But this hasn't stopped me forming several spurious opinions on her merits as a public speaker and the motives behind this feckless act. Thus far I accused of her 'riding on her husband's coat-tails' in an attempt to become the first female and first black female American president all in one go, using her position to lead a group of finger-wagging sistas into war with North Korea and ousting Oprah from her number one talk-show host slot simply by fluttering her eyelashes at TV execs.

And I still don't know what her the subject of her speech was. 

Seven days and one week

A round-up of the week's major news stories as seen through the eyes of an inattentive, misinformed moron.

CHILD-KILLER MUST SERVE A MINIMUM OF FIFTEEN YEARS

When you're a young person learning the ways of the world your natural inclination is to consider yourself quite liberal-minded. Let them eat cake, you say. Legalise this, allow that, relax this, we just want everyone to get along. Then you see a bit of the world, you see what people are really like, and that idealistic youngster who thought everyone deserves a second chance turns into a realist. But even the most open-minded, anti-establishment youth couldn't argue against the return of the death penalty for people like Mick Philpott. The problem we have as a society have is that we believe ourselves above such primitive forms of justice. No let's rehabilitate them, we say, make them a better person. In this case that is not a possibility.

The notion that this man may be eligible for parole in fifteen years is truly mind-boggling. Almost as mystifying as the knowledge that he will be clothed, fed and given a roof over his head for that time by a state who must surely be as appalled as the rest of us by Philpott's actions. We console ourselves with the belief that he may meet into some of the prison network's more unsavoury characters during his time behind bars. But then we read of the heightened security surrounding the poor lamb, twenty-four supervision to ensure he remains unharmed. The kind of protection usually only afforded to heads of state and dignitaries. When all it would take to rid the world of this parasite is to simply set him free, let him walk out of that prison and into the welcoming arms of his adoring public. Now that's what I'd call justice.

NORTH KOREA GETS REALLY ANGRY AND PROMISES “THIS TIME WE MEAN IT”

I'm always dubious of nepotism in the workplace. It rarely works. Junior, having been mollycoddled to maturity, finally takes the reins from his much loved patriarch and rather than carry on the good work done by his old man he decides to shake things up a bit. Kim Jong-Un could have regaled the world with stories of magnificent rounds of golf and weather-changing abilities and we'd all have warmed to him like we did with his eccentric dad.

But no, the new heir has to go and be all power-hungry and start picking fights that he simply can't win. I imagine North Korea's nuclear arms to be primitive fare, rusty old, CCCP emblazoned relics foraged from the hills of Siberia. Do they really want to start picking fights with the good ol' US of A? I don't think so. America has, over the years, shown that it's not averse to a ruck and if Kimmy keeps rubbing them up the wrong way it won't be long before he's scurrying back into his rat-hole begging for forgiveness. Stick to propaganda like the your old man, and keep the stories of your bonkers country coming, we enjoy them immensely.

CYPRUS VOWS TO REMAIN IN THE NEWS FOR “THE FORESEEABLE FUTURE”

I have a theory; the Irish government, concerned that we're getting a bit disgruntled about our ailing economy, have decided to show us just how bad things could really get in an attempt to make us grateful for our lot. How else can you explain the wall-to-wall coverage of all things Cyprus over the past few weeks? Fuckin' hell we get it! They're broke, they're even worse off than us, they're a mere shadow of the nation that once celebrated a 5-2 victory over Stan Staunton's boys in green. We understood the severity of the situation after a couple of days, and in typical Irish fashion we offered empty sympathies before carrying on with our lives.

But now two weeks on it's still headline news. It's okay, it's okay, we got it the first time, we mutter as another maudlin Mediterranean laments the loss of their life-savings, didn't we hear this last week, I could have sworn I saw this exact same bloke bemoaning the price of petrol. What the fuck is going on here? It's obvious what's going on. This is the future, our future, unless we keep our mouths shut. In a couple of years this could be us, being shat upon even more than we are now. The message is clear; accept these new taxes, embrace the December budget and most importantly smile while we continually shaft you up the arse. Or else. Or else it'll be you on that telly crying into the camera like those poor Cypriots. Message received loud and clear.

“I AM NOT A RACIST” SAYS ITALIAN FASCIST DI CANIO

At some point during the last twenty years there was a seismic shift in the way football reporters operated. Where once the story was what happened on the pitch it has now switched to off-field affairs. Sure there was always an appetite for gossip and the antics of George Best, Tony Adams and George Graham were greedily gobbled up by a public eager to discover the dirty side of the game. But those were isolated incidents, mere footnotes to another week of exciting action in the Football League. It's different now. Thanks to Sky's dedicated sports channel there is a need to fill every available minute with news, regardless of whether it's newsworthy or not.

So when a member of Sunderland's board resigned his post due to the perceived political stance of new manager Paolo Di Canio all hell broke loose. And did anyone really give a shit? I certainly didn't. I already knew that Di Canio wasn't a racist, a bit of a nutter, but not a racist. But what about that fascist salute during a game for Lazio, they cried? Old news, he had explained it away as a Roman salute at the time and I had accepted his reasoning and moved on. But in spite of this non-story the English media got plenty of mileage out of it and will do so until the next salacious piece of hearsay pops up. And then I, like everyone else, will give it even further credence by talking about it online. Oh sardines and trawlers.

HOLLYWOOD SCIENTOLOGY DWARF SAYS “I'M IRISH”

When will it all end? With Jesus? With Santa? With the Queen of England? Will there eventually come a point when the entire planet is Irish and anyone not claiming Gaelic heritage will be shunned and forced to live out their days in Sligo? Tom Cruise isn't Irish. Look at the big tanned head on him, the big shit-eating grin, he's no more Irish than Saint Patrick. But his fuckin' ancestors were from Kildare! I don't give a shit. He's not Irish. The same way Obama isn't Irish and the same way George Clooney isn't Irish.

If we were all to trace our roots back a couple of hundred years God knows where we'd claim allegiance to. A big red-headed fucker walking down the street telling everyone “I'm from Venezuela”, “Yeah right boy look at the big freckledy head on ya”, “No, I'm serious me great-great-great-gran-uncle emigrated from there”, Fair enough so, you're Venezuelan, congratulations”. And so it would continue, until everyone in Ireland was from some far-flung land and everyone outside of Ireland was from Ireland. If your parents are Irish and their parents before them were Irish then it's fair to say you're Irish. So on that basis I'm sorry Tommy but you just miss the cut.

THE VOICE HUNK SMOKES WEED, WOMEN GET MOIST

Just when you thought Bressie couldn't get any more enigmatic he drops this bombshell. He smokes weed! And he thinks it should be legalised! Swoon. As if the nation's women weren't already quivering at the knees, he's now gone and become a bad boy aswell. Give the rest of us a chance Niall will ya! The ensuing outcry was as predictable as it was tiresome but somehow Bressie has emerged from the whole thing relatively unscathed.

However just when I was about to roll my eyes skyward and denounce this latest revelation as nothing more than a publicity stunt he revealed that he suffers from anxiety. It's not easy to tell anyone that you're struggling with mental illness, whether it be your parents, your doctor or your mates. So to announce to an entire nation that you've been fighting this most debilitating of ailments takes some balls. And even more, he managed to do so without turning it into a sob-story, without tugging at our heartstrings and getting our womenfolk lost even deeper in those dreamy eyes of his. I want to hate you Bressie, but you're making it very fucking difficult for me.

Pixie's story

A week in the life of an elderly puppy

Monday

Ahhh Monday morning, my favourite time of the week. The hustle and bustle of the weekend is behind me and now I can finally relax. It gets fair headwreckin' around here of a Saturday and Sunday let me tell you; people coming and going, sitting and chatting, walking and laughing, and most of 'em don't even have the decency to give me an oul scratch. Fuckers. Well they're all gone now and I'm in charge again, I know Daddy and Sheena still live here but I'm the boss and I think they know that.

Not sure what I'll get up to today, must check the post first anyway. Nope, nothing, nada, just bills and shite for them other eejits, all these years and I've still never gotten even so much of a postcard. Sometimes I wonder do people even know I exist. I go out in the kitchen and have a little sniff around, still some of yesterday's dinner there but it doesn't look too promising, then again what do I know sure I'm half blind! The maddening thing is I can smell a dentistix but I'm fucked if I can find it. I spend a solid half an hour looking for it and eventually give up when I hit my head off the leg of the table for the umpteenth time.

I decide to watch guard for a few hours. I'm an unbelievable guard dog, probably one of the best in Ferrybank if not the whole of Waterford. I sit at the top of the stairs and keep an eye on the door for any intruders, and if anyone comes I shout my head off till they run away in terror. Not one break-in in over fourteen years – beat that Eircom phonewatch! After a while I get bored of keeping watch, people are obviously so scared that they don't dare come near, my reputation precedes me at this point. A little nap I think.

I'm awoken from my slumber by the sound of a key in the door, “Wha! Who's that”, I run out ready for action but it's only my sister Sheena. “Hi fluff”, she says, I've never understood this; my name is Pixie but this wan insists on calling me fluff, I'm confused enough as it is without people changing my name. Anyway I follow her out to the kitchen cos she's usually good for a biccie or two, and right enough she chucks a couple in my general direction. After a brief search I locate them both and snaffle them down quicker than you can say “Is me name Pixie or Fluff?”

Wouldn't mind heading outside for a wee wee now so I shout at Sheena to let me out, “Hey, hey, hey, HEY”! She eventually gets the message and opens the front door for me and off I go. Not a sinner about today, that Sam Brown fella is probably hiding from me cos he knows I've a bone to pick with him (see what I did there, BONE? Haha I'm hilarious). Anyway he can't hide forever I'll catch up with him eventually. In the meantime I decide to walk all the way down to the Silverwood sign and shout at cars for a while. Some laugh. By the time I get back and call Sheena to leave me in I'm rather tired so I decide another nap is in order, this has been a very tiring Monday so far.

I wake up in my bed in the sitting-room; which is weird cos I could have sworn I went to sleep in the garage. Anyhoo Daddy is home so I go over and sit beside him for a while, he gives me a little rub behind me ears which is nice. I go out to see what's cooking and it looks like chicken for dinner, not my favourite but it'll do. I wait for my plate to come out.....and I wait some more....they serve up......and I wait some more........where's my plate lads? Feck sake, looks like a bout of begging is in order. I sit beside Sheena and give her my most mournful look, interjecting it with the occasional whine. Eventually my efforts are rewarded with a few titbits but its not enough and I'm forced to eat some of that Pedigree Chum shite that they put in my bowl. A bad end to the day.

Tuesday

I didn't sleep well at all last night, probably cos I decided I need to go out for a sniff at four in the morning. Funny thing is sometimes I ask Daddy to leave me out the back and then I forget what I wanted to go out for. Last night I woke up busting for a wee wee and woke him up to let me out. But then by the time we went downstairs I couldn't remember what I wanted to go out for! So I'm out the back in the freezing cold and I'm thinking “What the fuck did ya bring me down here for boy eh”? I did some sniffing and a bit of investigating and I was just about to head back in when I realised I needed to do a poo. So I did one. And then after all that I didn't even do me wee wee. It's mad being old!

You'd think I'd be bored at home on my own all day but I'm really not. I have a busy schedule and I like to keep to it, I'm a creature of habit really. So after checking the post and sniffing out any stray biscuits I do a few laps of the house, it's important to keep fit at my age, before I have my mid-morning nap. Then I watch guard for a while and do a bit of shouting just in case anyone is trying to sneak in unbeknownst to me. And sure before I know it the lads are home again!

When Sheena lets me out today I spot Sam Brown straight away, no mean feat when you can only see outta one eye. Truth is I probably smelled the dirty yoke before I saw him. Anyway I ambles over to him, “Hey Sam ya big fleabag how's the form”, “Alright Pixie girl how are you, not seen ya in a while”? The cheek of him, he knows full well why he hasn't “seen me in a while”. I keep calm despite my growing rage, “I was under house arrest wasn't I”?, I say, waiting to see if he'll cop on. “Were ya”? The big dope says, “what did ya do have another shit on the sitting-room floor”? The fecker is laughing at me now! “No”, I reply, “I had to stay in cos I had fleas, and where dya think I got them”? “Down in Spar”? He says, the cheeky prick. At this point I just walk away, “You and me Sam, we're finished, dya hear me”? He just laughs again, he knows I'll be back, I always come back.

That evening, after tea, me and Daddy have an argument. I'm a bit bored so I decide to shout at him for a bit. “Hey, hey, hey”, cough cough cough, “Hey, hey, hey”, I says to him, “Inta bed Pixie”, he replies! It's not time for bed Daddy it's only 7.30!! He leaves me out the front then and even though I didn't really want to go out I humour him and go for a little wander. Sometimes I think he doesn't understand me at all.

Wednesday

Niamh is here today, not that it makes any difference to my day, bitch doesn't even talk to me anymore. So I ignore her. Problem is she doesn't even realise I'm ignoring her so it's all a bit pointless really. Not to worry I'll just scratch the shit outta her door and cough all over her face the next time she's staying over. That other fella is with her, can never remember his name. Sometimes he rubs me so he's alright, he's no Pieman though, I love that guy. Wonder when he's coming to visit again, he's brill.

I have to go to 'the man in the white coat who pokes and prods at me' in the afternoon. Apparently my cough is bad so I need to get poked and prodded, sigh, just leave me have a little sleepie and I'll be fine. Anyway Sheena brings me and we're in the waiting room with all the other animals that have coughs. There's a big freak in there the likes of which I've never seen before, I know I'm a small dog but this lad is ridiculous; all floppy jowels and gangly legs, what a sight he is! I can barely stop laughing at him but I quieten down when someone comes in with one of them weird things with the big ears that eat carrots. They scare the shit out of me! I ask Sheena can we go home but she just tells me to ssshhhh, easy for you to say you're not terrified of that pink-eyed nutter over in the corner.

When we go into 'the man in the white coat who pokes and prods at me' he's all friendly as if he's forgotten about the last time. I haven't forgotten let me tell you. Bastard almost killed me with his big needle and now he has the cheek to act as if nothing happened, “How's Pixie”, “Aww the poor mite”, fuck you boy and if you even attempt to stab me again I'll cough all over ya. Luckily he just does some poking and prodding this time and before I know it we're away out the door. On the way I do a little shout at pink-eyes, haha have that ya big eejit.

Thursday

I sleep all day today, clearly exhausted from yesterday's exertions. I dream that I'm a sniffer dog for the drugs squad and I become so famous that I'm on telly with Ryan Tubridy, I'm chatting away to him and he understands every word, gwan Tubbers. Then I dream that I give up the drugs game and become a showdog instead. Me and Sheena go to Crufts and I win the whole thing in my first year, “It's unprecedented”, they say, “A remarkable achievement for a first year rookie”, “What breed is she”?, the fans cry, “I'm a Pixie”, I tell them, “a pixie.

Friday

Brilliant news. Michael is home. I'm so happy. He always minds me. Plus this means Christine will be here too, she's great. Sometimes I just sit and stare at her and think to myself “you're great”. I'll probably do that later for a while if she's here. Usually I hate Fridays cos of all the people but I'm in good form today, I even talk to Sam Brown for a while and he apologises for being a big flea ridden bastard. Kinda feel sorry for him really cos his owners obviously don't give a shit whether he's clean or not. I bathe at least once every fortnight I'll have you know.

Just when I think this day can't get any better The Pieman arrives! Wahey he's some craic, he even scratches my arse the feckin fool, rather him than me. So now I've got loads of people to annoy erm I mean chat to. We're all in the sitting-room shooting the breeze but I don't think I'm getting enough attention so I decide to shake things up a bit. I scratch at the door, yes, hello I'm here, and I'd like to go out this way please, oh I know I can go the other way but I choose to go this way, now open the door sucker, works a treat and I feel wanted again. So I do a few laps and then stare at Christine for a while, she's great. Pieman scratches my arse and asks me how am I getting on, grand thanks boy and yourself.

Then they all start disappearing and heading off out the door, I feel a bit lonely but I go over and lie under Daddy's feet. He's watching Tubridy and chortling away to himself, I'll be on that one day Daddy just you wait and see.

As promised I get my own back on Niamh by going to her door at six in the morning and scratching it till my paws bleed. I hear them complaining so I do some shouting and a few coughs, have that! Then just as they're about to let me in I sprint back to bed and pretend to be asleep, Pixie 1 Niamh 0.

Saturday

Again I wake up in a weird place. On a pillow in Sheena's room. How on earth did I get here? Tis lovely though. Herself and The Pieman invite me up onto the bed but I don't like being on beds, well it's not so much that I don't like being on them, it's just I'm not able to get down from them. Once I was trapped on a bed for four hours, I couldn't get down and had to call for help. Scary.

I mooch downstairs and there's all sorts going on, can never remember everyone's name; Anne Glascott, Nora & Mollusc, Auntie Marlon....utter confusion. But it's also utter heaven in terms of food, time to make hay while the weather is good I say to myself as I spring into action. I swear I could win an Oscar I'm such a good actor, these eejits don't realise I'm better fed than they are as I whinge and whine my way though ham, chicken, cheese and even a cheeky bit of beef. Life is good sometimes.

Fed to the gills I retire to the garage for a snooze but I've barely shut my eyes when I hear an all too familiar sound, a sound that fills me with dread. It's the curly child, oh no. He comes in with Niamh and Shamo and immediately starts chasing after me, chasing! Me! I'm nearly ninety years old and I'm expected to leave this lunatic run around after me purely for his entertainment. Spare me. I have no choice but to play along cos God knows what would happen if he ever caught me. So I trot around for a full nine minutes before Sheena picks him up and spares my life. Well that's over for another week I say as I finally get to bed and have a lovely power-nap where I dream of Tubby and marrying Sam Brown.

When I wake up there's more food. Daddy has done the shopping which means Dentistix, I'm kinda gone off them though, they were great at first but now; meh. But wait what's this he has for me, a....is it......it can't be......it is!!!! A BONE!! YEESSSSS! BONE, BONE, BONEY, BONE, BONEY BONEY BONE, BONEBONE!! And the size of it! Tis bigger than meself. Ha, if Sam Brown could see me now. I take it in my jaws and nearly fall over with the weight of it, me poor ole teeth will never get through this yoke. But first up I have to hide it. Every dog knows that the first rule of bone-keeping is to find a good hiding place for it. I decide upstairs in my bed is the best place for it. Some job bringing it up the stairs though, jaysus tis hard enough getting myself up em without carting a cow's leg with me and all!

I carefully hide it under my bed in Daddy's room and head downstairs barely able to keep from laughing. “Where's your bone Pixie”? They ask, ha as if I'm tellin' ye, oh you'd love that wouldn't ye? Pixie the big eejit tells ye where the bone is and before i know tis after being whipped. No chance. But shit, where is the bone? Oh no. NO! NOOOO! I can't remember for the life of me where I left it. Left what? What am I talking about? Feck this, I'm off for a snooze.

I go upstairs for a nap so as not to be disturbed by all them nutters and guess what I find in my bed?! A bone! A bloody massive one! Daddy must have left it there as a surprise. Brilliant. I gnaw and gnash at it for a while before I start to get paranoid. What's that noise? Is someone trying to steal my bone? Only thing for it is to hide the blasted thing. Everyone knows the first of bone-keeping is to find a good hiding place for it. I decide that downstairs in my bed in the sitting-room is the best spot imaginable but my dilemma is sneaking past them scoundrels without them seeing.

So I take this monstrosity in my gob and creep silently down the stairs. I can hear voices but they seem to be coming from the kitchen. IN the blink of an eye I'm in behind the couch and the bone is under my bed. Haha, have that I say triumphantly. Bones are great.

I spend the rest of the evening hiding and re-hiding the bone. A couple of times I forget I even had it and the buzz of discovering it for the first time is truly amazing. Being forgetful doesn't half have its benefits at times. But with great power comes great responsibility and the pressure of having this bone and ensuring no-one steals it is getting to me. I'm almost relieved when Daddy takes it and chucks it out the back. Chances are I'll find that in a couple of weeks and be dead excited all over again.

Sunday

Another week done and dusted. I spend most of the morning chilling in the sitting-room with The Pieman, sometimes he talks to me as if I can talk back, bit thick this fella. There's a decent dinner on the go and hopes are high that my yellow plate will be brought out of the press. I get under everyone's feet and make a general nuisance of myself so they won't forget about me. “Yellow plate, yellow plate, yellow plate”, I whine in anticipation and for a while it looks like I'm all out of luck. Daddy takes out loads of plates, white ones, blue ones, red ones, but yellow one? Nada.

I've resigned myself to another session of begging when yes there it is, the yellow plate! Before I know it it's filled up with all manner of goodness and the highlight of my week is here. The Sunday roast, ya can't beat it! I munch and chew and slurp my way through the whole thing in a record time of 42 seconds before heading to the dining-room for a bit of a begging. Hey ya can't blame a dog for trying? Michael remains true to form and looks after me like I knew he would, Pieman is a hopeless cause as he's too busy stuffing his own fat face to even take any notice of mine. But eventually I get something from almost everyone and I head to the garage to bask in the stench of my own farts.

I wake up and hear familiar voices, Jimmy and Josephine by the sound of things. They're nice. Ah look Nora and Mollusc are here too. A right ole crowd. They're eating human biscuits, no not biscuits made out of humans, biscuits which humans eat! I salvage a few of them before deciding to get my bone. But what dya know?! It's been stolen! I knew this would happen. I turn my back for five minutes and the bastards have robbed it. Bet ya it was this Shamo fella, I could see him looking at it all morning. The thieving fucker, I'll cough all over him the next time I see him.

Ah sure look there'll be other bones, no point in getting cross. I shout at Jimmy and Josephine for a while, scratch at the door to let em know I exist and do a few laps of the sitting-room just for a laugh. And with that I'm off to bed for some dreams of Tubby and how to gain revenge on that feckin bone-stealing prick.

Memoirs of a misspent childhood

Part 5: Neither man nor boy

It's the day that every mother dreads, the day she hoped would never come. That angelic ray of sunshine, her one and only, becomes something altogether different: no more sunshine, only storm clouds: and plenty of them. That little boy who answered “My mammy” when asked who he was going to marry when he got older is no more. Now he doesn't even want to be seen in public with you. He doesn't hate you, far from it, so don't feel bad. But that beautiful, innocent friendship you once had? It's over, and there's nothing you can do about it.



Ironically enough it's another mother who is to blame for this sorry state of affairs, Mother Nature. She has seen fit to whisk away that doe-eyed little cherub and plonk down an insolent ball of grease-ridden fury in his stead. She has injected him with an intoxicating amount of testosterone and the poor little mite hasn't a fuckin clue what's going on. He was happy enough to hang with his mammy all day believe me. But for reasons he doesn't understand he's heading off on a terrifying journey full of intrigue and wonder - and mammy just isn't invited.

I've always hated the word puberty. It's so clinical, so officious. “Yeah I've just begun puberty, started last week, not bad so far but obviously I've got a while to go yet”. How can you sum up the most distressingly magnificent time of your life in just one word. You can't really. Other terms like adolescence, juvenility and teenage years don't really do it justice either. I like to think of it as a life-defining era, your coming of age, you enter it a snot-nosed bundle of high-pitched hysteria and come out the other end all cool and world-weary. Well that's the idea anyway.



The physical changes are distressing enough; unexpected protuberances, excessive perspiration, a voice capable of going from baritone to falsetto in the same sentence - but that's small fare compared to the emotional trauma. I can look back on my own coming of age with a degree of fondness now but I wouldn't want to experience it again. I don't know what it's like for the kids of today but being a teenager in the 1990s was a bit shit. No internet, no mobile phones and a dearth of readily available alcohol meant that we had to work for our thrills. And when you factor in my location, a dismal backwater in South Kilkenny, is it any wonder that I'd rather forget my pubescent years?

But perhaps I was better off living in such secluded environs, because the defining characteristic of my boyhood was a crippling, almost debilitating, shyness. We all had our afflictions; that kid whose voice hadn't broken by fifth year, the luckless bastard who watched in horror as World War III broke out on his face, the fella even poorer than you who never had any school books, but for me it was the ole 'go bright red any time someone outside of your close circle of friends even glances in your direction'. Lovely. I could attempt to psycho-analyse my younger self and pinpoint the reason for this timidity but where's the entertainment in that? Far better to recount painful childhood memories for your delectation.



Now obviously one of the main components of a teenager's life is fraternising with the opposite sex. It should be all about speculative fumbling and phony braggadocio, but when you flush scarlet any time you get within five yards of the fairer sex it makes things far more complicated. At one point I considered explaining it away as part of my mating ritual, a baboon's arse goes red when it wishes to mate, well so do I. But that simply wouldn't do, and besides I was far too self-aware and bereft of confidence to believe that any of those fair maidens would allow me to tamper with their undergarments. Oh if I could have five minutes with that younger me, things might have been so, so different.

Don't get me wrong I wasn't a complete no-mark. Despite my shyness I did manage some ham-fisted attempts at unhooking and unzipping some elaborately fastened items, but a large part of my formative years seemed to be spent wistfully fantasising about various unattainable damsels, that girl from the year above, Jet from Gladiators, you get the idea. And when I wasn't cursing my inability to converse with the opposite sex I was to be found quietly questioning the meaning of life and wondering what was the point of it all. I may have had raging hormones just like the rest of you but a sense of embittered melancholy prevailed above all. I'd say I was great craic altogether.



But those were just my quiet moments, those times when I escaped to a better world and lived the life I believed was justly mine. Whether it was engaging in mindless, wanton destruction, acting the maggot with your mates or discovering the joys of alcohol there was plenty of lolz to be had and I like to think I had my fair share. Never cool enough to be considered part of the 'in-crowd' nor hapless enough to be grouped with those who smelled weird, looked weird or just were weird, me and my mates ploughed our own furrow with little or no interference from others – inbetweeners if you will.

Cast adrift from society as we were there wasn't a whole lot to do of an evening. So our nightly ritual involved what could politely be described as 'blackguarding'. Nowadays when I walk past a flowerbed liberated of its flowers I find myself quietly tutting and muttering something about 'lack of respect' under my breath. Oh what a short memory I have. I'm not sure what it is about teenage boys but they just love to decimate and destroy. This activity can take any form; from the harmless 'toilet-papering of trees' to the more sinister acts involving rocks, public amenities and satisfying noises. Maybe we wouldn't have had so much pent up frustration if there'd been more girls willing to let us have an oul fumble.



And when we weren't roaming the countryside looking for things to break we were concocting plans to plunder some golden nectar. These little bastards today have it so easy, there was hardly even any off-licenses back then never mind alco-pops! My poor mother in her infinite wisdom tried to delicately introduce me to the world of booze by buying me a couple of cans in her weekly shopping. And for a while that worked. Pissed out of my head I'd stagger through the village hugging strangers and shouting at cows but even at that age I began to build up a tolerance. Thanks for the efforts mother but those tins of Smithwicks just aren't doing the job anymore, I need something with a bit more kick.

But with no local off-license what the fuck were we to do? The answer was simple; save up our pennies and buy bottles of champagne-cider from the wine section at the local supermarket. Easy-peasy. The fact that I looked about six years old even when in my mid-teens didn't really help matters, but thanks to a lanky stature and a hitherto unseen bravery I regularly drowned my young liver in some of the finest piss to ever come out of Belgium. And in truth it could have been much worse, I don't think I sampled a drop of spirits until I was almost old enough to buy the stuff legally. No I was happy enough with my bottles of Vervier, even at that age I enjoyed the finer things in life and often combined my drinking with some deep and meaningful conversation, before disappearing behind the bushes to puke my ring up.



It's easy to understand why drink and the procurement of it plays such a big part in a teenager's life. It's a quick-fix, a one-way getaway from all of those hang-ups and issues which stalk your every waking minute. Too shy to speak to girls? Get hammered and stumble in their direction while they recoil in disgust. Problem solved. But for me it was a mere footnote, a means to an end. What kidulthood meant was a growing sense of freedom, the realisation that you were an individual in your own right and the your parents weren't the savants they made themselves out to be, and that you, yes you, could shape and mould your existence in any way you saw fit.

But given the choice would I do things differently? Probably yeah, but although those humiliating bouts of face-reddening trauma were torturous at the time they may have in some way shaped the person I am today. And when you read about children, because that's what they are, taking their own lives due to social-media bullying you realise that a little rosacea is a small price to pay for what is unquestionably the most difficult period of any person's life. I'm just glad I got through it in one piece, and managed a few innocent gropes along the way.

Uppers and Downers

The first in what is sure to be an irregular series of items documenting the things which have pleased and displeased me in recent times...

UPPERS

• Those giant four pack of cookies you get in Tesco. If you've tasted them you'll know the ones I'm on about.

• The Undateables - guilty pleasure? Why don't I feel guilty then.

• Rafael da Silva, the embodiment of what it means to play for Manchester United.

• The bantz between Alexander Armstrong and Richard Osman on Pointless.

• Borgen, arguably even better than its compatriot The Killing.

• Bed time flatulence. My own not anyone else's.

• Behaving like someone half your age while feeling like someone twice your age.

• Discovering bands from bygone eras and having an entire back catalogue to enjoy.

• Conscientious customer service, as surprising as it is delightful.

• Youtube videos of dogs being dogs.

• Kelley Kapoor from the US Office, both for her acting abilities and her dusky good looks.

• The look on a loved one's face when receiving an unexpected gift.

• The word 'impromptu'. It sounds like it should be a naughty sex act – I got caught having an impromptu with yer wan down an alley.

• RTÉ News Now, about time we got a dedicated news channel.

• Doing your level to best to ignore all talk of economic crises, resulting in a much happier existence.

DOWNERS

• Russell Howard, the worst 'comedian' currently on TV. And that's quite an achievement in this day and age.

• The vague, unseen boundary between the women's department and the men's department in certain clothing stores.

• Trying on a 'ladies hat' in one of the aforementioned stores.

• Those inane Facebook posts which tell you to “repost this if you've got a sister/brother/mother/father/auntie/uncle/cousin/gran/grandad that you love with all your heart”. I'll just tell them myself thanks.

• La liga, like the SPL just with better weather.

• That moment when your brolly goes inside out during a particularly windy storm.

• The hellish, ice-cold terror that is the five minutes between exiting the shower, getting dry and then getting dressed.

• That Corrs Light ad, seriously how long has that been on for now?

• Daniel Day Lewis and his “towering performances”. Getting a little boring now.

• iTunes, do you need a Phd in the sciences to fully understand how it works?

• Those little balls of fluff which form on your living room floor if you don't hoover for a while.

• Getting chastised by beggars for not crossing their palms with silver.

• Self-service checkout ditherers, if you don't know how it works just use the normal tills.

• Painstakingly hanging an enormous load of washing on the clothes horse and then watching it collapse under the strain.

• Internet-exclusive terms like 'trolling', 'flaming' and 'griefing'. 

• Civilians openly urinating in public, DURING THE DAY. What the fuck is wrong with these people?

The land of a thousand welcomes

The Gathering - celebration or shakedown?

As a child there was nothing more guaranteed to cause mayhem in my house than an unexpected visitor. “Who's that?” “I don't fuckin know, we'll have to answer it to find out won't we?” “Tell em I'm not here whoever it is”. But it was too late. In they came, unannounced, wrecking any notion of a quiet night in. Match on telly? Forget about it. The biscuits – which you'd earlier been told you couldn't have – were brought out, artistically arranged on a fancy plate, and those fuckers got their feet well and truly under the table. You spent the rest of the evening trying to gauge the conversation for clues as to when they'd piss off; before finally they'd rise from their chair – your chair – and begin the lengthy 25 minute goodbye. When the door eventually shut behind them you all breathed a sigh of relief, let off a few farts and returned to bickering about what to watch for the night.

But at least you knew those uninvited guests, you might not have relished their arrival but you knew what to expect. Thinly veiled barbs from that auntie who, for some reason, never really liked you, an inquisition from your uncle who had taken it upon himself to mentor you through those difficult teenage years, fulsome praise from a grandmother who appeared content to just sit and bask in your brilliance – you accepted this behaviour, after all they were family. Occasionally you got lucky and it turned out to be just a “family friend” at the door, these people rarely offered up gifts or guff and so were treated with the neutrality they deserved.

In 2013 we're all going to have some unexpected visitors. Who invited them? I certainly didn't, did you? No, the Government did. I'm not sure how they came to this decision but perhaps it went something like this: “Hmm I see tourism is down over the past twelve months lads”, “What? You're telling me the world's population isn't drawn by the lure of overpriced Guinness and renovated ruins any more?!”, “Tis true, something will have to be done”, “How about we organise a big, mad session and tell all those feckin American eejits that they can come and meet their long lost cousins?”, “Genius, lets go on holidays to celebrate”. Thus The Gathering was born.

So what exactly is The Gathering about? It has been entitled a “Celebration of all things Irish”: as if we didn't have enough of that shite already. It looks like we can expect an entire year of revelry akin to the annual piss up that is St Patrick's Day. But this will be much worse than any average Paddy's Day celebration because in addition to the pissed up natives we can expect another “70 million people claiming Irish heritage to return to their roots”. 70 million? 70?!? How is it that even possible? Is being Irish considered so cool that there's 70 million people out there willing to claim allegiance to this rainy, windswept outcrop?. There's only five million of us living here and half of them are from fuckin Poland.

Yes, yes I know, immigration was a necessity because all the spuds ran out and the lads had to go to America, I'm not here to quibble. But you have to admit, 70 million is a pretty high number. Where will they all stay? Even if only one in ten of these proud Son's (and Daughter's) of Eireann returns to the Motherland that's still seven million beds to be found, and like I said previously they are not staying with me. I don't care if my long lost second cousin Bernadette Bourke from Lincoln, Nebraska arrives on my doorstep with a head cut clean off my beloved, late nanny, she's not bloody staying. Piss off Bernadette I have enough cousins thank you very much. I'll be happy to meet you on neutral territory for some perfunctory chat about how I remind you of your dearly departed Uncle Huck but that's as far as it goes.

I'm sure Enda would have me extradited if he knew I had such a frosty reception prepared for the poor, seafaring Bernadette, but my rancour is not without grounding. The Gathering may seem like a chance to reunite long lost loved ones but its true meaning is far less sentimental. Gabriel Byrne had his sense of patriotism questioned when he labelled the year long celebration a “shakedown” of the Irish diaspora, but I can't help but side with him on this one. Even the title description appears intentionally vague, 'A Celebration of all things Irish', what exactly does that mean?

And that's the main problem, I don't think anyone really understands what The Gathering is. From what I can gather (ho ho) it has given the townspeople of Ireland carte blanche to host field days, fêtes, agricultural shows, ceilidhs and jamborees to their hearts content. Which basically means your local do-gooder organising countless mind-numbingly dull events that they believe represents the real Ireland. Have you ever attended any of these aforementioned field days et al? I have. It's like being present at the end of days as all those present attempt to squeeze every lost drop of joy from your soul until you're as eternally miserable as they are.

Oh I'm sure some of the events will be worthwhile, the big ones sponsored by alcohol brands eager to cash in on this sorry affair will be a riot. Yummy pints of warm American beer at only €6 a go, mmmm Irish. The New Year's Eve Dublin Festival (€25 + plus booking fee) is sure to set things off with a bang. But if you don't fancy paying that kind of money there is a “free fireworks display”, it warms the cockles of my heart to note that we haven't yet figured out a way to charge people for looking up at the sky. A bit closer to home on New Year's Day is the Castlecomer Wellie Race, which is exactly how it sounds, a bunch of gobshites running 5km in wellies. Now I'm no historian but did our forebears ever compete in long distance cross country events wearing such hilariously unwieldy footwear? I very much doubt it.

It's all so typically Irish, which you might think is a good thing, but it's typical of the modern Ireland – a country where the onus is on charging as much money as is humanely possible and providing as little as you can afford to get away with in return. Hoteliers, publicans, restaurateurs and every peddler of cheap bric-a-brac in the country are already rubbing their hands with glee and wondering just how high they can go. But why should I care? If this 'shakedown' can provide a much needed shot in the arm for our tourism industry then it's surely a good thing, if these visitors are stupid enough to pay the going rates at their expense then let them come. I suppose what rankles me more than anything is the sheer commercialism of it all, the insatiable desire for the Dollar, Pound, Euro, Yen or whatever currency these poor fools are packing.

Maybe it won't be so bad, maybe I'll hit it off with my cousin Bernadette and we'll chat regularly on Facebook. She'll show me pictures of her uncle Huck and by Christ wouldn't you know it I'm the spit of the handsome bastard. We'll bring her to the local alehouse and sing songs about the 'black and tans' till the wee hours – never once mentioning that I'm nothing more than a blow-in and not a true Son of Eire – and she'll feel all warm inside until she's found round the back puking up that Jameson she was so determined to knock back. We'll wave her a tearful goodbye and promise to visit her and all the folks back home in Nebraska before instantly forgetting about her and returning to our respective mundane existences.

But even if the whole thing is a roaring success, even if this time next year we're toasting the return of the Celtic Tiger thanks to twelve months of frivolity, I still find the whole thing so downright patronising. As a nation we're not renowned for venting our spleen when things aren't to our liking but this is another level entirely. We're now being told to be Irish, being told to celebrate that fact and worst of all being told to invite other supposedly Irish relations over to celebrate it as well. The Dáil has become one big, huge party planner and everyone has to attend the party, solemnly playing pass the parcel like the well behaved children that we are.

What I propose is an alternative Gathering. Never mind all this shite about our heritage and mythology, its all a load of boring bollocks anyway. Instead gather all the family and friends that you do have, the ones that you love and cherish, the ones that you haven't seen in ages, and even the ones you don't particularly like, gather them all. And then when you've done that embark on a celebration of all things Irish. No, not a ceilidh at your local dance hall, just a big, traditional Irish knees-up the likes of which you haven't had in years. Wreck the place, go mad, be unashamedly Irish, wake up in bed next to a stranger or in a prison cell covered in your own vomit. Be Irish, be spectacularly Irish and while you're doing so spare a thought for poor, misfortunate Bernadette and her yearning desire to be part of a nation that doesn't even exist.