Stranded on Gaia

There are no songs about budgets

2009-12-09T22:06:00.006Z

How much fun was that? I had to go out and pick up a child halfway through so if there was a part where Lenihan slipped in a bit about how he wasn’t going to be a tremendous poor people raping cunt I may well have missed it. What’s that? There was no such announcement? Oh well. Fun none the less .

I was honoured to star in a Twentweet, along with Darragh, no, not that Darragh, though this Darragh seems to share that Darragh’s nauseating attitude of ‘Wow, isn’t everything just peachy’. Hey, guess what? Apparently Fás are fab, and we should focus on all the cool shit they do, like training inbred bozos how to tie their shoelaces, and not the stunning inefficiencies and outright theft performed by their executives. (And to drop my dripping irony for a mo, let it be said that training is not the fucking answer. We're all trained to fuck. There are no jobs, not even shoelace tying jobs). And hey again, just in case you think Gimme is being a leetle harsh on Darragh II, check the fuck out of this sentence: "negativity seeds negativity and it's negativity that has this country where it is today. Not bad government decisions." Oh for the love of good fuck.

Personally, I’m super positive about this budget. For months we have we sat duck-taped to our chairs, as our great leaders pranced around to Steelers Wheel, occasionally bending down to whisper into our temporary ears of all the nasty things that were going to happen come December. And as the sun goes down on the dreaded day, I find myself and mine not all that bloodied and still in possession of almost all of our aural appendages. Why? Because, despite what feels like an endless struggle against debt and Common Law’s ridiculous 79c app habit (appit?), we really aren’t that poor. And nor, come to that, is any fucker with a permanent public sector job, despite being the alleged loser in this most Saint Bridget of budgets. Sure, he might be negative equitied right up the ass, but she still has a house and he can still put food on the table. Maybe it's a struggle, but it's a struggle for everyone. And what we got today is a shitty fucking Thacherite cop out involving the further exploitation of the genuinely impoverished, a complete abandonment of any vague thoughts of job creation, and a scrapage scheme that benefits, you guessed it, those with enough cash floating around to buy an oh ten car.

Young people on Job seekers "benefit" get the shit cut out of their money because up until now they were just sitting on their arses playing XBox. Why didn't 22 year olds do that during the boom? Because there were fucking jobs. People want to work. These welfare cunts, these Limerickers, these Darndalese, will always exist. You cannot legislate for lazy cunts. But making it impossible for the youth of today to make ends meet while looking for a job that doesn't exist isn't going to make the jobs appear, it's going to make the young uns leave the country. And rightly so. Shit, if it wasn't for the children, I'd be in Penticton right fucking now, ranting about the poor pouring of the Guinness and the lack of quality snow And I have a fucking job.

Time for a conclusion? Coming right up.

I'm slightly relieved, more than a little disgusted, and really fucking scared. This is no eighties, no thirties, but thanks to today's comedic anti-climax, it soon fucking will be. Turns out I wasn't all that super positive after all.

Sorry, Darragh II.

If I should stay I would only be in your way

2009-12-07T12:26:00.002Z

Anonymous said... U miserable fuck I hope u die in your sleep!

Oh yes, she or he did. And having finally received what I hope we can all agree is essentially a death threat, albeit a very kind and generous one, I believe the time has come for me to either give up this bleughing malarkey before my ultra-secret black Brit carpet-muncher identity is revealed, exposing me to all manner of increasingly cunning assassination attempts, or to dump the nippers and spend the resultant expenditure reduction on a round-the-clock, steely-eyed yet palsied-paunched protector named Philip. And having given up the Go Me! game so many times before, it would be a little humiliating to once more throw in this threadbare towel only to pick up it up again in a week or two when I find myself with nothing better to do. So Bridge Crew jettisoning it shall be. Anyone want two ageing, and only slightly soiled girl children? Sure you do, they're dead cute, if less so with every day that passes.

But guess, folks, guess who the fuck wants me so peacefully dead? What post might have garnered such a mortal menace? One of my ad hominem attacks on poor old Darragh Doyle? An unreasonable rant re golf? Or who would have fucking thunk it, a well reasoned argument against the continued pumping of time and cash into a dead language? Yup, had to be. Rule of threes, innit? And because this gal or guy loves the Gaeilge so much, he or she has fucked off to Australia, presumably to troll from a distance while spreading the good tidings that the Irish language is alive and well and what's this, living in fucking Melbourne. Home soon though, home soon to kill me in my sleep.

'Bring it on,' says Philip.

I remember way back then when everything was true

2009-12-06T11:18:00.004Z

As thoughts here in Gaialand drift slowly about the arena of possibly sometime in the distant future maybe considering the vague concept of attaching ourselves onto the very lowest rung of the property ladder, I am reminded of a childhood moment.

My hyper-Catholic, Inigo Montoya of guilt grandmother stands holding a letter in the front room of her family home, with tears streaming silently down her face. The letter, it is explained to me, contains the information that she and her husband now own their house. As a child I am confused by this, on a number of levels. Haven't they always owned the house? And if they haven't and now they do then why is Mammy Zealot sad? The concepts of mortgages and joyful tears are thus explained to the girlish Gimme and all is well with the world. But now, now I'm not so sure.

Within a year my grandfather's right temple mole was revealed to be something more than a beauty spot, so they hacked off the side of his face and turned this greatest of men into a slurring embarrassment to my selfish, now teenage self, and all to no avail. Dead, he was, and soon. Mammy Zealot followed within the year, having nothing left for which to live. And now I wonder, what was the point? What was the point of those years of struggle to raise six children and two grandchildren, to scrimp and save to pay for the monstrous mortgage and the monthly mountain of church bound cash, if at the close of days Jolly Jumping Jesus did not see fit to give them even a couple of years to enjoy all these achievements, all this freedom? I now heartily suspect that what I witnessed on that sunny winter afternoon were not after all, tears of joy, but a prescient weeping of why the fuck did we bother?

I heard there was a secret chord

2009-11-30T17:18:00.005Z

I walk down by the side of the church, shivering in my new denim jacket. My granny wouldn't have let me wear it but she was still in the kitchen when I said goodbye and went out, closing the big, heavy door as quietly as I could. I really, really wanted to wear my new denim jacket because I think it looks really good. I brushed my teeth too, which I don't always do, and splashed some of my uncle's man perfume on my neck, like I see him do. He calls it aftershave but he doesn't really shave yet so I call it man perfume and he hates that and gives me a dead arm when I do. It's still really dark.

We always go this way to church anyway, even when we're just going to normal mass, my Granddad and my granny and me and my sister. Not my uncle, he always goes to a different mass. I think maybe he doesn't go to mass, but he always knows who said it because my granny always asks him and he always knows. I think he doesn't really go because once I asked him what the sermon was about and he just mumbled something and my granny said I hope you were listening and he said of course he was listening and they argued a bit and later he gave me a dead arm.

Today I'm going in the side door so even if I lived in Rathmines and I normally came in the front way I'd have to go down the side way. Because I'm serving. It's really, really cold, but I know that it'll be warmer in the vestry because it's always warmer in the vestry and Father Kavanagh will be there today. I take off my glasses before I go in. I'll have to put them on before the mass because I can't really see very well and once I tried to do the mass without them and I knocked over the water and wine thingy by accident and Father Tonge was doing the mass and he called me a clumsy cunt quietly so now I have to wear them in case and anyway Judge Durkin and Mrs Durkin are always at the half seven and if they see me without my glasses they'll tell my granny and she'll be annoyed and not talk to me and maybe even hit me with the spoon because I'm always losing my glasses. But I take them off before I go in anyway. My glasses make me look stupid, because they're all brown and yellow and big. I tried to make them look better by painting them with a gold marker that my Granddad has but my granny made me scrape it off and now they look even more stupid because there's little bits of gold still left.

Father Kavanagh is already there when I get in, even though I'm really early. The door's open but I knock anyway because you always have to knock. Father Kavanagh shouts come in. He looks like he's waiting but he doesn't look very glad to see me. I say good morning, Father, but he just grunts. He's still wearing his normal clothes, he even doesn't have a collar on, just a nice white shirt and black trousers and I think that maybe he's wearing man perfume too, but I'm not sure, maybe it's the incense or just him. He smells good. He's very tall and not fat and he makes me feel like I need to pee, but not exactly like I need to pee.

Mick comes in. He looks like he's just been crying. He always looks like he's been crying, with his leaky face. That's what I call him in my head. Leaky Face. But not in real life. In real life I just call him Mick, but I don't talk to him very much. He doesn't talk very much. Father Kavanagh looks glad to see him though. Father Kavanagh always looks glad to see Mick and he never looks glad to see me. It's still only five to seven, I can see the time on the clock on the wall, but Father Kavanagh tells me to go down and open the big front doors. I say it's only five to seven Father and he says don't argue with me and while you're there put out the leaflets and fill up the holy water, there, there's the bottle and be sure and knock now before you come back in here. I say yes Father.

I walk out onto the altar and genuflect in the middle of the altar before I walk down the big centre aisle. I always do this job, while Mick helps Father Kavanagh get dressed. I love being in the church when it's empty, it's so huge and peaceful and quiet, but really I'd like it more if I was the one helping Father Kavanagh get dressed. I asked Mick to swop one time and he said yes but Father Kavanagh decides and he always picks Mick. I go slowly, carrying the water, because it's a big bottle and it's heavy and I don't want to drop it and I'm carrying the leaflets too and I put the water down and do the leaflets first, put them in the four holder thingies and then I get the water and genuflect again. I like genuflecting. Then I go out and open the big doors and put water in the bowl thingies even though they don't really need any water so I just put in a bit, but really carefully because I can't really see without my glasses and the bottle is really heavy. And then I walk back up the centre aisle and I genuflect again before I go up on the altar and then I go to the vestry door and knock and I hear Father Kavanagh say wait so I wait. I wait for a while and I don't know whether I should knock again, I don't know what time it is because there's no clock but I see an old lady coming in, that old lady who's always at the half seven and always wears black so I knock again and I hear Father Kavanagh say I said wait, louder, so I wait.

And then Father Kavanagh says come in now. And Father Kavanagh and Mick are putting on Father Kavanagh's vestments and Father Kavanagh looks brilliant, tall and strong and smiling. Mick doesn't have his cassock on yet, so I go and take off my denim jacket and put my cassock on and look for my glasses. I can't find them. They're not in my denim jacket. I'm going to be in so much trouble. Mick looks like he's been crying again. He is crying a little bit really. I don't why, he hasn't lost his glasses. Stupid Leaky Face.

I tremble with the nervous thought

2009-11-29T20:43:00.005Z

Scroll. Click. Vote again. Scroll. Click. Vote again. That's me. That's me and Darragh Doyle, That's me, Darragh Doyle and his army of illiterate minions. All day, every day. My weight is down, lower even than when I won that race, because I don't have time for eating, just clicking, scrolling, voting again. There's more of them, you see, so very many more. X-factor watchers. Late Late Show live bloggers. Happy-clappy, isn't life just great fucking zombies. Lurching, clicking, scrolling, voting. You can't kill them by crushing the skull because they're already brain undead, every last neuron melted by reality television and blissful ignorance.

I thought it was all over on Friday, I thought I could let it go. Mired they were in a single digit with four worthies, or at least less shitties, ahead of them. So I risked an evening out. But late last night I checked again, and there they were, way out in front, leading the charge with their idiotic, lowest common denominator banality. So I skipped work today, let the children starve in their own filth, and clicked and clicked again. And I cannot make a dent.

I've given up on the languishing Twenty, whose fan base appear much too concerned with fringe issues like the rape of our children and witty word play, and am focusing my voting on the second place minority reporting of Maman Poulet. I'm not a regular reader, being more of a majority man, but I am aware that the woman can construct a sentence and has more in her mind than the fucking Breffmeister, whatever the cunt that is.

I am a small and bitter man, yes. But I'd rather be small. I'd rather be bitter. I'd rather be angry and sad and nasty and yes, depressed, I'd rather be all these things than an 'I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here' watching moron. And rejoicing in its futility, I will make my meaningless stand.

Come gather round children, it's high time ye learns

2009-11-25T08:56:00.003Z

Someone quipped chucklefully on the Major (vote Twenty, twenty times) site yesterday that the teachers had stopped picketing three hours before everyone else. Well, let it be known that life imitates quip. Imitates the fuck out if it. And then takes it to a higher imitation plane.

I spun past the Bridge Crew's Catholic Madras at 9.15 yesterday expecting to get the free tingle that a wave of support to any kind of strikers never fails to provide. I'm not sure from where this tingle comes. I have no strong feelings on the various issues at stake, having aggressively adopted the "head in the sand, Common Law's got a steady gig, I'm alright Jacqueline" attitude right from the start of this delightful downturn. But I like strikes. I think they're cool. I dig the placards, the camaraderie, the fight against The Man, even when logic suggests that it's merely one The Man fighting against another.

And so it was with grave disappointment that I found the school gates chained yet unmanned or womanned, with nary a banner nor brazier in sight. A bit off, I thought, but perhaps they're having a quick pre-strike meeting, throwing together a few Jesus and Irish language tinged protest songs at the last minute. But when I returned at 12.30 there was still no sign nor signs. Those lazy, lazy fuckers.

Parent teacher meeting tomorrow and I hereby vow to spend our allotted thirty seconds discussing not the always perfect Riker, but my tragic lack of trade union tingle.

But I never got to Kiev

2009-11-23T18:25:00.007Z

All the injustice. All the man-made misery. The Man made misery. Fat cat bankers, property wankers. So much to inspire my ire and yet nothing in my admittedly sozzled short-term memory has aroused in me such revulsion, such rage, such bitterness as the following two sentences:

'Jedward: they inspire some with revulsion, shame and hate on the one hand but I think it’s fair to say that the majority in Ireland admire and love them. I’m in this later camp and am very sad that they’re gone.'

Yes, yes, we all know that Gimme is the most boring of grammar Nazis, the most pedantic of syntax stormtroopers. You know this, I know this. And thus with this knowing, I want to wrench these forty-one words from their weeping. hysterical parents, as they crouch as a family, self-shitting on an overcrowded cattle train. I wish to wrench so that I might gas. Gas the fuck out of them, until with much eyeball gouging by filthy, ragged fingernails, with hearty heart-stopping howls, they die a slow, agonising, richly deserved death, These words, these words come from a post entitled 'The genius of Jedward'. The. Genius. Of. Jedward.

Dude, if a dude you are, and not some demon sent to fill my life with meaningless meaning, know that they do not inspire with revulsion, shame and hate. They inspire these emotions in the righteous, the brain-celled, the true. They inspire with banality, with a lack of even the most basic vocal or kinetic talent, with a summation of all that is wrong with our popular culture.

And know that you cannot have just one hand. Or perhaps you can, but you should then hack it off with a mouth-grasped rusty axe, before hurling your neck upon said axe so that this class of language sin may be committed no longer, no, not even with one of those Christopher Nolan head stick thingamajigs.

And know that it is not "fair to say that". It is, in fact, idiotic to say that. Not merely because were the sentiment itself to be true it would indicate that Ireland as a nation is truly beyond redemption, but also because you don't want to say "the majority in Ireland'" you want to say "the majority of people in Ireland". Or "the majority of Irish people". Or "fluffy pink newborn Koala bears". I pray to the God in whom I do not trust that you do not want to say something so offensive to eye and ear. And speaking of the go-to-guy with the beard,

Know that good fucking Jesus on a hideously ugly, offensively slow Yike, it's fucking latter. Latter. LATTER. Can you hear me Berlin? IT'S FUCKING LATTER!

Before I began, I mused that this measured monologue might make me feel better.

Nope.

The sun is the same, in a relative way, but you're older

2009-11-12T15:49:00.002Z

There is a temporal disturbance in the corner of my kitchen. In the little alcove above the dysfunctional dishwasher sits Microwave II. Microwave I, fatally wounded by my nine minute reheating of a plate of pasta for nine minutes, died one sad day six months later with a weak flash. I was not all that unhappy about this. Its digital clock had always been fast, inching ahead of real time by about 10 seconds a day. I got used to performing the necessary mental arithmetic and when I forgot, or the arithmetic was too hard, I was ahead of schedule. early. And I like to be early. But every six weeks or so, Common Law would correct it and I would become horribly confused. And late. And I don't like to be late. So I made Microwave I break. Enter Microwave II, a microwave too. And guess what? Microwave II has started running fast.

It's more subtle this time. 5 seconds a week? Something like that. But it's definitely happening. Coincidence? I think not. I believe in this digital age with all its wondrous rectangles, and digital clocks don't run fast. I am left with only one sketchable conclusion: temporal anomaly.

I'm going to remove Microwave II and climb in there, into the vortex. It shouldn't be more than a couple of months before I'm far enough ahead. The loss of income and necessity of hiring of a staff to both tend to me and do all the shit I do for the children, will be more than made up for when I call out the winning lotto numbers to Common Law.

I'm going to do some yoga now. It's a pretty small alcove.

Oh, come take my hand

2009-11-10T12:31:00.003Z

This is, without doubt, the most lucid of dreams. Here I crouch typing, having done with many of the morning's banalities, folded, shopped, tidied and all with an almost unbelievable whiff of reality. Sure, a sky bluer than I've seen it for many a day and the vaguely off-putting beauty of everyone that I have encountered since half-past ten point to the illusionary nature of what appears before me, but in almost every other aspect the day seems just like any other. And yet it cannot be. Momentarily I will awake, drenched in pre-performance sweat, nauseated by the instant revelation that was has gone before is naught but the workings of my sleeping, shiny happy people addled brain.

Two years and five attempts later, my having passed my driving test can only be a dream.

Clouds that pierce the illusion that tomorrow would be as yesterday

2009-10-21T17:15:00.002+01:00

Common Law has just walked out the door, using that hoary old "work" excuse, leaving me with Data, Riker and two of Riker's friends. How the good fuck did this come about? It's a Girl Guide, having a car, being a good neighbour thing and may well become a regular event. Four children and me at the dinner table. The noise, oh mother of fuck, the noise. One of them, known to regular readers as Olivia who says "crap" all the time, is perhaps the loudest person ever in the history of the world. Every word is a shout, whenever it is not a shriek. There is no statement, question or imperative that is unworthy of a hollered "Oh my God!" preface. And the other three, newly grown up Data in particular, feel the need to compete enthusiastically yet unsuccessfully, with this tornado of tone. Two more hours before I can drop them off and go to work. They finish and drift to another room, Olivia's dinner untouched as she is "allergic to potatoes", as well as, one assumes, chicken, spinach, cannellini beans and cherry tomatoes. I crank up the Rodriguez as I clear the table, but to no avail. Every exclamation drills through my frontal lobe, the usual comfort of hot water plate rinsing easing my tension not a jot. Worst of all though is the realisation that this is just the beginning, cut to one, two, three, four five years from now, and there's two sets of friends and they're louder and brasher and even more in my fucking face.

I believe I may have some kind of nervous condition. Most likely a touch of the vapours.

Such a cost

2009-10-19T21:20:00.003+01:00

I had my heart broken when I was a child, multiple times, in quick succession. So I thought, fuck this, and decided not to do that any more. I cry when I'm bad, I cry out of anger, I cry at weddings. People don't make me cry any more. I just turn that shit off.

So it's hard to know how adults deal with these dealings. Lost love. Love lost. It's hard to know what they need from me at these times. These loved ones, these cherished ones. Because all I ever have to offer is rage. Data falls over on the way home. I feel rage. I snuggle her and try to make her laugh but all that I feel is rage. Rage at myself because I wasn't close enough to make the catch. Rage at the ground for daring to strike my daughter. Rage, most of all, at my endless impotency in the face of this world. But I know what Data needs. She needs the stuff that I'm giving, the hugging, the hilarity. I don't know what grown-ups need.

Perhaps, like me, they just need Snickereses.

I never thought that I would find myself in bed amongst the stones

2009-10-18T22:02:00.004+01:00

I've had a little work done. Kept the hair though.

Day is done, gone the sun

2009-10-15T22:16:00.006+01:00

Riker has started Girl Guides. I'm not sure how I feel about this. Except that I do. I feel uneasy. Very, very uneasy. She got her Guide book yesterday and contained within is just a little bit too much of that God shit of which I am so not a fan. I fear that what with this and all the compulsory gobbledegook that they're feeding her in school we may soon have a full fledged Christian on our hands. I wrote n/a under "religion" in the form we had to fill out but I bet that won't stop them.

"Tie the knot, Riker, but tie it with Jesus' love."

"Help the old lady cross the street, but don't worry if you fuck it up and she gets pulverised by an oncoming truck as she will be with the angels all the sooner."

"Light the camp fire, Riker, and let it burn the heresy in your soul. And then let it burn all the heretics, starting with your father."

But enough about Riker. Let's talk about me.When I lived in Britland as a child there were no normal Scout troops in my area. and so I was enlisted in the Boys Brigade. Essentially Hitler Youth for the Orange Order. I have no memory of attending meetings but I do retain a strong mental image of the uniform, sash and all. There I stand in the mirror, fat, bespectacled and ready to slay the filthy Micks. Given my outrageous Irish accent and clearly shouldered burden of Catholic guilt one has to wonder why I was even permitted to enter the Parish Hall. And when one wonders, one must inevitably come to the conclusion that they saw fit to use me as the supreme leader of a fifth column, sent back to Ireland as a sleeper agent, to be awakened by a haunting melody in the fashion of the Final Five so that I might bomb the fuck out of Dublin's city centre before going down in a hail of FCA bullets. It's coming folks. And soon. The only question remaining is what tune will set me off?

I'm guessing something from the new Chris de Burgh album, but I'm open to suggestions.

Words don't come easily

2009-10-14T18:35:00.001+01:00

I both like and respect my next door neighbours. I do. Krauts to the left of me, woman and children to the right. I especially respect, and indeed like the woman to the right, who, in the face of disproportionately intense, albeit accidental hostility on my part has returned this hostility in a much more measured, though still pretty fucking hostile, fashion. I have taken down the offending, offensive posts and I look forward to us continuing our mutual pretending this all never happened and just getting on with it relationship. Maybe we could progress from an aggressive backwards nod to our erstwhile amiable hello, though? For the kids? No pressure, like. I am without doubt more sinning that sinned against.

Wow. I was just going to bang out another snarky segment about the other next door neighbours, specifically their trumpet playing of Christmas songs at 10pm on an early October evening son and all that came out instead. Oh well. This way I finally get to use a Gately sung lyric as a title.

Outside a glittering building of glittering glass and burning light

2009-10-13T22:11:00.006+01:00

In the window of the local pharmacy.

Where to start? With the saddle? Well okay then. Sexy, huh? And a mere €25 in the tiny bike shop in Duras. It was the last one though, so your hastily formed plans of a flight to Bordeaux and a three hour cycle to that shuddering memory-filled castle town are all for naught.

And now. Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot.

Let us glide gracefully by the sickening deconstruction of the word "vanity" and concentrate on the sentiment. Isn't vanity a bad thing? Aren't vain people cunts? You can rhetoric the fuck out of those questions, folks, because it is and they are. I speak with knowledge. Narcissus ain't got shit on me. If I didn't have so much other dreary dross to do, I would happily spend my days gazing at my stunning visage as self-snapped on my phone, over and over again. And I am bad, I am a cunt, the mitigating circumstances of my intense beauty notwithstanding.

"Organic". Really? You fuckers are trying to make us believe that the colouring of ones skin to a fluorescent shade of Ulster says no is a natural act, perfectly in tune with the concept of Gaia? If it's organic, sure we can spray it in our eyes! My eyes have always lacked a decent tan, try as I might to stare down the sun.

"Make up by Smashbox." Apparently this is a well known brand of cosmetics. Well, fine. But it sounds to me very much like the makeover master intends to lay hands upon a hefty sledgehammer, dab it lightly with foundation and then repeatedly slam said hammer into the lucky débutante's face. Sure, you're choking on cheekbone fragments and the blood is making it difficult to see, but your nose is a lot smaller and golly but that's the perfect shade for your skin tone.

"False Eyelashes From €15". The "from" is somewhat suspicious, is it not? Are we talking €15 per eye? Per lash? Just how big are these glued on spiders anyway? Were I to be feeling creative might I have them applied to somewhere apart from my eyes? I'm thinking nostrils. There's a beauty trend to be started there, folks. If teenage girls can be convinced of the desirability of a skeletal frame and Uggs, then a bushy nasal hair trend must surely be imminent.

And so to the teeth. What would an eighteen year old have had to be doing with his or her life to be in need of laser whitening? Eschewing brushing? Avoiding all sources of calcium? Chewing baccy? The endless cud churning of gum just wasn't hitting the spot any more? I have no idea what this procedure involves, but I'm confidently guessing that it's intrusive, ineffective and ultimately bad for teeth. I will hear no scientific facts on this point.

In conclusion. What are we? Who has this kind of money to fuck away on such filth? How is this acceptable? By shelling out on all these servitudinal services for one's daughter one is effectively saying "My darling, your skin is the wrong colour, your plain face needs pimping, your lashes are like nasal hairs and Jesus Christ, but the state of your fucking teeth. You ugly, ugly loser bitch." We're all saying it, to all those young women. And by not putting a brick through that window I'm saying it too. You ugly, ugly loser bitches.

We carved our intials deep in the bark

2009-10-12T21:15:00.003+01:00

My anger subsides as I start on my third bowl of something. Bowl One: Carbonara. Builders breakfast pasta. Made with slimy ricotta instead of parmesan. It's a recession, doncha know. Bowl Two: pea soup. We need to defrost the freezer and I have a penchant for the purchase of frozen peas. Buckets of the bastards to get through. Again with the ricotta substituting. Bowl Three: muesli. No ricotta. And finally the rage subsides.

It's the hunger. Hunger makes me crazy. Two commutes today for a yoga and a cover spin. 60k fixed, very little food. I'm passing through the Oktoberfest at the IFSC, as I have done for the last three days. Cunts, I think. Horrible, horrible cunts. Most of them are invisible, hidden beneath the bouncered, bouncing tent. There is a band. It plays 'Living next door to Alice'. The crowd shrieks the unofficial refrain: "Alice! Alice! Who the fuck is Alice?" Cunts. Cunts, cunts, cunts. I hate them. I hate them because they're at a beer festival, because they're drunk and unconcerned about tomorrow and three more spin, because they have more money, more time, more energy than I. But mostly I hate them because they're having a good time. The cunts. Would it be so much effort for the rest of the world to at least pretend to be having as miserable a life as I? Is that so much to ask? I pound the final 5k, each pedal stroke a kick to the temple of every happy person on the planet.

I eat. I retract. I repent. Food has dissipated my rage. But the eating, the eating has been hard. It's about a week now since I became aware of this bitter metallic taste in my mouth. Every time I ingest, it's like I'm licking a rusty saw. I think I'm going to have to stop eating. And then you're all fucked.

We used to talk about boys with missing spines

2009-10-11T08:42:00.001+01:00

I can handle it. Except I can't. Handling's not my thing. I can ride pretty hard, fetchingly fast, for reasonable amount of time. I can certainly go faster than you. Provided I don't have to turn. I know. It's fucking tragic, right? I make myself out to be this big cycling guy, but I lack the only attribute outside of balance that is necessary to ride a bike, viz, the ability to steer. Steering, handling, not my things.

I'm getting better though. I finally counter steer. Like a patient elder step-brother quietly pointing out the booger hanging from his reluctant charge's nose, Mr M took me aside and gave me the low down. Counter steering. But of course. Pretty fucking obvious to anyone with even the most basic grasp of gyroscoposity. But not to the Gimme. I am, as I may have mentioned before, a physical, a physics dolt. My hate hate relationship with the world around me extends not just to the constant dropping, bumping into and breaking of stuff, but also to my inability to negotiate even the widest of bends at anything above a crawl. I have to get back to running. Straight lines. Self-inflicted anguish. Beating a tiny section of the word into momentary submission. No skill, no flair, just the monotonous grind. Monotonous grinding. Grinding monotony. These are the talents in which I am well versed.

So much younger than today

2009-10-08T21:34:00.002+01:00

I need your help.

I don't say that often, master as I am of my own universe, a veritable Superman, in truth, capable of any task, no matter how Herculean. Aside from those annoying little ones like getting up in the morning, not screaming in frustration about a bizillion times a day and you know, being alive. But I'm sorted for everything else.

My eye was caught by this article which talks about bloggers getting free shit for good reviews. I should do that, I thought. So while I wait for Messrs Mars, Bianchi and Grasshopper to realise the massive purchasing power of my fourteen person readership I thought I could get in some practise by giving a glowing review to something shit. Or shittish. Or fucking wonderful, I don't care. It's not like I want to work hard at this. So some suggestions? A poem, an album, a very short book. A fillum, even. I'll find it myself. You won't have to send it to me. You don't even have to pay me or give me other random free stuff. Though I'm much more likely to pick your idea if you do.

A time to refrain from embracing

2009-10-07T16:12:00.003+01:00

First full-fingered glove day. Stupid fucking seasons. Why can't they be more consistent? Why all the thoughtless twists of temperature, daily light allowance, mood? Why can't I live in San Andreas with Carl and his homies? Or at a fucking pole of one kind or another? Not a fucking pole, but a pole far from Poland, a top or bottom of the world ma pole. Here in Eire, or get fucked so you don't have to think about getting raped land, I am fed up with the seasonality of seasons. Suddenly my 10k commute now involves suiting up in full chilliness body armour. Cycle shorts, long johns, arse ripped out jeans, snuggly socks, bike shoes, over shoes, base layer, jacket. In addition to the usual helmet, shades and ever tattier backpack.

I bitch, but really I like. Any cunt can wear shorts and a t-shirt. Any prick can ride in a temperate September. The extra five minutes I now spend at the opening and closing of each two wheeled trip speaks of my genuine dedication to this cycling fetish. And I look better, skinnier in this get up. I had me a super sexy shadow this morning as I powered up Castle Ave. Svelte, he was, and thus was I. You may say that this was due more to the lowness of the sun in the sky, but then I may, nay, will say "Fuck you, science boy. Autumn makes me thinner. and just to prove it, I'm going to have a Snickers."

Stuff that up your nature hole, seasons.

Russian roulette is not the same without a gun

2009-10-06T21:37:00.001+01:00

While, for my previous previous post, I was researching how many words are normally in an average novel so that I could work out how many years it would take me, at the established rate of one word a minute, to write such an average novel, if I never ate, shat or slept, while I did all that, I saw this, and thought of me:

"I am currently writing a Sci Fi book as there is very little good books in this section in the market place, I have various contact in the film industry that want to show my script to producers however i believe it would be better published as a book in the first instance. (one its a film i can sell books sure but believe its better for people to say, 'hey that was justlike the book', or 'it was not like the book at all')" If this book is inteneded to end up as a film how many words would i needs in my script (currently have 32,500)"

I'm going to send that guy Data's birthday cash and he can write my novel for me. Who needs literacy or a working knowledge of the current health of the science fiction genre? Not Dave, not with that sparkling wit, and no, not Gimme neither.

Baby's sleeping while its mother sighs

2009-10-05T20:45:00.004+01:00

It's the fucking 'F' places effing with me again. There's Fairview, we all know about Fairview and it's big fat fucking hard on for my Death. There's France, which has fucked over holiday after holiday. When I was fourteen, I got in a dinner table fist-fight with this kid from La Croix Blanche. Arnaud. Little fucker. I get in a lot of fights in France. It's the French in me. But now, now there's Dundrum. Didn't see that coming, huh? That's because you didn't know that Dundrum begins with "F". No, it does.

I gently clear my throat.

Basically, Data got cash for a Hello Kitty Build-a-Bear off of Janice and Finbar. Dundrum is the only place in Dublin where one might construct and expensively purchase such an ursuline ass. So to Dundrum I drove Common Law and the Bridge Crew. And went to work. And missed all the drama. You'll have to quiz Common Law on the details. But this much I have garnered: some people still have way too much money and are still too way big on the bastardosity. Seriously, when's the fucking uprising? What will it take? When one Western country goes, do we all go? America looks close. It's due a nice civil war, big place like that. Whatever. This can't go on. We musn't go down without a fight. Look. Look what we're letting them do to us.

Hello Kitty Build-a Bear emerged snow white. It's been two days. Already looking a little grubby. It's going the way of my soul.

Belinda lived in a little white house, with a little black kitten and a little gray mouse

2009-10-04T20:27:00.009+01:00

Inspiration is odd.

Jesus, this is why I never write. The above sentence had about five incarnations. I started off with something like:

"It's odd the things that inspire you."

Well, it's not about "you" is it? It's about me. It's always about me.

"It's odd the things that inspire me."

Ugh. Fucking car crash of a sentence. "It's"? Really? Fucking ugh.

"That which inspires me is odd."

Still has a "me". And a hideously pretentious opening.

"I am inspired by the odd".

Getting there stylistically, but a total corruption of any meaning that might have originally been intended. I am, in fact, inspired by the crashingly banal.

"Inspiration is odd".

Well, halefuckingjeula, you got it down to three words. This hackneyed, overly addressed, shitty little aphorism, is, if nothing else, short. And it only took you three minutes. Word a minute. For that.

And this is why I never write.

God is a concept by which we measure our exposure to contagious disease

2009-09-02T14:17:00.006+01:00

So you know the way I can't give out about the batcrap voodoo shit that goes on in our local neighbourhood primary school? Sure, how can I complain when it was my choice to send them there and not to the nearest non-denominational circus tent seven kilometres away? This is how I can. Just like this:

We got a note home yesterday briefly welcoming the children back, repeating the words 'home' and 'school' three times within the same sentence before eventually getting around to addressing the central topic of how all our offspring are going to die, and horribly. Swine Flu, capital letters, innit? We got served the by now standard syntaxless soup of HSE guidelines (use and bin a tissue for every exhalation, regularly dunk your extremities in sulphuric acid or Campari, your choice), which was quickly followed by the Principal Nuala's primary solution to a global pandemic:

"Let us all offer a collective prayer to God to watch over us all and keep us safe and well."

Let us fucking not, Nuala. Because that's not going to help is it? What with God being a big fucking lie, who, due to that whole not existing thing, is incapable of singling out one Dublin primary school for preferential no diseasey treatment. If the front line response to killer plagues continues to be an Our fucking Father, we might as well just mass produce a new strain of Rat Flu and inject it into our kids as they brush their teeth in the morning. A better plan, at least for the Gimme household, would be to break the whole Santa/Tooth Fairy truth to Data, deal with the tears and then have an excellent comparison with which to demonstrate Jesus' lack of giving a fuck way one way or another and how it might be better to rely on sound scientific theory when dealing with life's endless dangers and stresses. All for the best.

P fucking S Nuala, if it's a collective prayer, then the sentence doesn't need the 'all'. You illiterate cavecunt.

You can tell your Maw I moved to Arkansas

2009-09-01T13:09:00.004+01:00

Data is retrieving a plate from the cupboard for her lunch, which is being made by, well who'd have fucking thunk it, me.

Data: Oh, you found this plate.

Gimme: Um, I didn't realise it was lost. But yes.

Data: I love you. I mean, I love this plate.

Gimme: I'm glad. But you love me too, right?

Data: Yes. I love you second.

Gimme: Pardon?

Data: I love Mommy first, that's why I love you second.

Gimme: Oh. Okay.

It's not like I didn't know it already, but couldn't she have sugar-coated it a smidge? Fuck it, at least I came in ahead of her Grandma.

Arshavin to score first, Arsenal to win

2009-08-30T15:43:00.004+01:00

64 minutes. Glassy-eyed and limp he stares at the screen. Watching their last chance slip and slide and dive. She gazes at the half drunk pint of blackcurrant and then at the floor. He leans down, thinking to kiss her. She looks at her watch through her thick cracked glasses, unaware of his movement and the consequences, wishing merely for the game to end. He stops halfway down and remains in this position as his eyes lift again to the screen. 65 minutes. Their last €200 ticking away. He straightens, stroking his stubbled chin with a slow, deliberate hand, hoping to rub the pockmarked skin away. To remove the face, start again. Still time, though, maybe. Maybe still time.

He has heard that gamblers do not want to win, that their joy and satisfaction comes from losing. The sick feeling in his stomach belies this apparent truth. He spots a blue shirt making a break above, surging forward, dancing through the defence. His heart surges, dances. The shot is pulled wide. Everything sags again. He does not want to lose.

"Is it over?"

"Fifteen minutes, about."

She stifles her sigh, takes a sip. He wants to sit but fears that she will then see the sweat on his brow, feel his trembling and thus know all. He remains standing. The time ebbs away. The sickness in his stomach dissipates, replaced by a full body numbness, a blank disbelief. It had felt fated. He was fearless on entering the pub, firm in his believe. No long shot this. All but certain. And when the ball crashed past the outstretched arm, from, as he laughed to himself, a long shot, there was no relief, just an unnecessary reinforcement of his faith. The first part of the wager fulfilled, he had ordered her a second blackcurrant and an extravagant packet of crisps. It all was meant to be.

89 minutes. No time now, no time for two. One no use. Has to be two. Suddenly the ball is in the net. Hope. Only takes a second to score. Two goals in extra time. Happens. And then the flag goes up. Off field incident and now no more, no more time.

"Alright, so."

"It's finished?"

"Yeah."

She drains her drink. He has a final fiver and change in his back pocket. He takes her for chips.