Brian Cowen’s last ditch attempt to woo the Irish electorate:
A Party Political Broadcast on behalf of Fianna Fáil
June 4, 2009 by RayCowen’s Popularity soars, as Fianna Fáil close gap on Fine Gael
May 28, 2009 by RayFrom the latest TNS mrbi poll in tomorrow’s Irish Times:
Fine Gael 36% (-2)
Labour 23% (+3)
Fianna Fail 20% (-1)
Sinn Fein 8% (-1)
Green Party 3% (=)
Independent 10% (+1)
Meanwhile, Brian Cowen has enjoyed a surge in support since the last similar poll…
Eamon Gilmore 49% (-2)
Gerry Adams 33% (-1)
Enda Kenny 31 % (-2)
John Gormley 27% (+2)
Brian Cowen 21% (+3)
Just when you thought the Indo couldn’t get any worse
May 28, 2009 by Ray
Top Ten Reasons to Vote for Fianna Fail next week
May 26, 2009 by Ray1. “They’re a great bunch of lads, so they are”
2. “My father voted for them”
3. “And my mother”
4. “And my grandparents”
5. “We’ve always been a Fianna Fail family”
6. “My local Fianna Fail TD sorted me out with a passport back in 1998″
7. “Sure, better the devil you know”
8. “They’re a great bunch of lads”
9. “Ah Jaysis, sure you know where you stand with them”
10. “Did I mention, they’re a great bunch of lads?”
Nutty Professor provides Light Relief
February 28, 2009 by RayIt’s good to know that, amid the doom and gloom of the recession, Brian Cowen has been thoughtful enough to provide us with Martin Mansergh. Let’s just try not to think about the fact that he’s a junior minister at the Department of Finance, at a time when Ireland faces the worst financial crisis in its history.
Ignore Kevin Myers, and he’ll go away
July 21, 2008 by RayWhen I first heard that Kevin Myers had written an article, claiming that it would be better if starving Africans were left to die, I must admit, I smiled. Naively, I thought that he was merely using his tried and tested tactic of conveying his point via the most provocative language possible. I presumed that he was utilising some kind of Swiftian method of telling us that urgent action is needed in Africa. And then I read the article…
Like any non-sociopathic person, I was fairly disgusted at the sheer unpleasantness of his article. With every sentence so carefully constructed to convey, in the most racist, bile-filled way possible, his point that ‘Africans are bad’, it is completely obvious that Myers’ was on a mission to upset as many people as possible. Unfortunately, he succeeded.
It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but the best way to deal with Myers is to accept that, at times, he lapses into some journalistic form of Tourette Syndrome, whereby he is compelled to write the most offensive, objectionable drivel that comes into his mind. 99 per cent of the time, it’s so easy to avoid his work, because much of it is nothing more than unnecessarily verbose whimsy. It’s just that, every now and then, like a twelve-year-old boy with a dead-baby-joke, he feels the urge to be oh-so-shocking. Deprive him of the attention he so desperately craves, and Myers will simply crawl back under his thesaurus.
You can be guaranteed that he spent much of that Thursday continually clicking ‘F5′ whilst sniggering and sneering his face off at the messages of disgust pouring into his inbox. Imagine how thrilled he must have been when he found out how many people had been accessing his article on the Independent’s website. The next time Myers does something like this – and there will inevitably be a next time – it really would be great if his words, however repulsive or bigoted, were dismissed as nothing more than the hopeless meanderings of a middle-aged attention-seeking cretin, writing for a paper which has long since shed its claim to be anything other than a cheap tabloid shit-rag.
Five ways to beat those Recession Blues
June 25, 2008 by RayTrust me – I’m not an economist.
1. Quit your job.
Let’s face it – there’s a good chance that, within the next few months, you’re going to be a victim of ‘outsourcing’, ‘downsizing’ or ‘restructuring’, so why not take control, get in there first and tell them where they can stick their lousy job? You see, signing on the dole is about to become a whole lot more socially acceptable. For the first time in over a decade, you won’t be seen as some parasitic social leper, sponging off the state. You’ll be a victim of the economy, forced to queue once a month alongside such bastions of middle-class society as former estate agents, property developers, cocaine dealers and party planners. At around €197 per week, the pay is mediocre, but the hours are absolutely perfect.
2. Write a novel.
If you’ve taken leave of your senses and sauntered out of a perfectly decent job, on the basis of shoddy advice dished out by some preposterously ignorant gobshite off the internet, you’ll have plenty of time on your hands. Put that time to good use, and get cracking on that beautiful piece of literary fiction that we all apparently have embedded within us. If you tell people you’re writing a novel, they’ll be fascinated. You could be a tedious bore, but the second you tell someone you’re writing a novel, you automatically become vaguely interesting. Even if you have no inclination to write, just lie through your teeth. As Peter Cook once said, when somebody informed him they were writing a novel, “Really? Neither am I”.
3. Emigrate.
We’ve all seen that mid-1980s episode of Reeling in the Years which ended with the depressing scene of countless young Irish people queuing at the US Embassy or Dublin airport or somewhere, in a bid to get the hell out of here to start new lives in the land of opportunity. Well, guess what folks! Those days are comin’ back! The only issue is that America is somewhat less attractive now that its own economy is on the skids. Britain is in the same boat – as is much of Europe and Australia. Although I hear there’s an insurance company looking for staff in Bangalore. That might be worth a look.
4. Get educated.
Let’s imagine you’ve spent the last year on the dole (or whatever optimistic name they’re giving it nowadays), and you’re getting a bit restless. Put your clothes on, sober up, head down to your local unfriendly Social Welfare Office and tell them you want to return to education. They’ll be so thrilled to see the back of you that they’ll put you on some scheme where they actually pay you to go to college. In addition to that, there’s a good chance that you’ll also be eligible for a grant, so while everybody else struggles, you’ll be relatively comfortable. Proceed to spend the next few years doing pretty much the same as you did when you were unemployed, except for the occasional appearance at college to hand in overdue assignments. At the end of it all, the recession will be over and you’ll be qualified to get a decent job.
5. Talk to people.
Yeah, remember when people did that? Those were the days when they weren’t clogging up the M50 every evening, with their kids festering away in filthy creches until 8pm. Sit your children around the fire and tell them how unlucky they are. Tell them how you remember the days when children were driven a quarter of a kilometre to their fee-paying school in Range Rovers and BMWs, equipped with Playstations and heated seats. Teach them about the days when ’spam’ was something you got in your inbox, and not a vital source of daily nourishment. They won’t believe you, of course. But your tall tales will be the only source of entertainment in their miserable little lives.
Ireland facing Recession. AAAAAAAARGH!!!
June 24, 2008 by RayIt’s official. Ireland is in the grip of a recession. The government has spent months studiously avoiding the ‘R Word’, instead using such beautiful euphemisms as ‘we’re experiencing a tightening of circumstances in the economy’. But now it’s official. The elephant in the room can no longer be ignored. We’re dooooomed!
But it’s not all bad. As a child of the ’80s, I must admit to feeling a slight twinge of nostalgia when I hear Ireland’s economic prospects being described as ‘bleak’. Looking at this whole recession business through rose-tinted glasses, I reckon It’ll be just like living in an edition of ‘Reeling in the Years’, except without the Feargal Sharkey soundtrack. Maybe Westlife, Boyzone, The Thrills and Damien Dempsey will all have to join together and stage another ‘Self Aid’. I’m excited already.
Now that we can’t afford Topshop, Next and that fancy place with the Italian name, we’ll all have to start buying our clothes in Dunnes again. I’m thinking of a nice duffle coat. Things might not seem so bad right now, but you need a good warm coat when the queue down at the dole office becomes so long that it starts two streets away.
In these challenging times, the two-car-family will become a thing of the past. When I was growing up, if any family on our street had more than one car, we just presumed that they were selling drugs. In keeping with the bleak ’80s theme, I’m afraid we’re all going to have to start buying Ford Cortinas and Datsuns again. Or at the very least, we’ll have to stop buying a new SUV every six months.
And it’ll be even bleaker for the majority of us who won’t afford the luxury of our own car. We’ll have to endure public transport. Unfortunately, Dublin Bus will have to sell its shiny new stock and recommission those noisy old green buses, and maybe even the orange/beige ones too. You remember… the ones with the leather seats that scorched your arse on hot days.
It’s not all doom and gloom though. Property developers, estate agents and the owners of such pretentious and frivolous businesses as ‘juice bars’ and ‘pet hotels’ are all staring at financial ruin (don’t laugh), but the rest of us will all get along just fine. Times may be slightly tougher, belts will be tightened and we might have to go back to drinking Smithwicks, Harp and Guinness, instead of Jägerbombs and WKD, but we’ll survive.
The worst thing about voting ‘No’ to Lisbon…
June 23, 2008 by Ray
Is that you find yourself effectively ‘on the same side’ as these wankers.
The above owners of incredibly punchable faces are all members of the United Kingdom Independence Party. Because of them, I very nearly voted ‘Yes’. They don’t just have a few legitimate issues with some aspects of the Lisbon Treaty. In fact, they probably know even less about it than our EU Commissioner, Charlie McCreevy does. As far as the likes of UKIP are concerned, EU membership simply means that bananas will be straightened, yoghurt will be banned, and we’ll all have to speak le Deutsch, like they do in Holland and the Netherlands.
They want Britain to be free from the shackles of the unelected Brussels beaurocrats, and have full control of its own destiny. At the same time, they want Northern Ireland to be freed from the shackles of its own elected Assembly, and not have any control over its own destiny. They are, in the words of David Cameron, closet racists, who want to ban immigration. They aren’t too fond of Muslims. Their failed London Mayor candidate wants to bring back the death penalty.
The one undeniably bad thing about our rejection of the Lisbon Treaty is that it makes these people happy. If the government really wanted us to vote ‘Yes’, their posters should have simply consisted of the face of the UKIP leader, Nigel Farage, and a short caption…
Vote ‘Yes’ or this twunt will be happy
Uncharted Waters
June 23, 2008 by Ray“No”
“I’m sorry… what did you say?”
“I said no!”
“Hang on a minute, while I kick you several times in the testicles…”
“Actually, when I said ‘no’, what I actually meant was ‘yes’”
As Ireland travels into this supposed period of political uncertainty, with question-marks allegedly dangling precariously over our EU future, it’s reassuring that, even in this period of ‘uncharted waters’, we’ve still got John Waters. And in Friday’s Irish Times, he seemed quite unhappy that the frankly abominable concept of democracy has discredited his claim that, “from Lisadell to Latvia, we’re singing as one clan”. In fact, he’s absolutely furious at what he (somewhat less lyrically) calls, “the most disgraceful episode in the history of Irish democratic procedures.”
To be fair, Waters is only saying what most of our politicians are thinking. Only they have to pretend that they respect the wishes of the electorate. They have to bite their tongues and blurt out the usual “the people have spoken” rhetoric… at least until they declare the inevitable second Lisbon referendum. Whatever happens, our ‘No’ vote will ultimately prove to be nothing more than a tiny blip and a meaningless minor delay in the execution of the European project.
Contrary to the pre-referendum scaremongering from the main political parties, our failure to ratify the treaty will not result in Ireland being left behind. It will not result in catastrophic job losses. And as shown by the clear lack of mirth from the EU’s most powerful, Ireland has not become ‘the laughing stock of Europe’. While our government are being somewhat coy about the idea of giving two fingers to the plebs, all of the noises from Europe’s most prominent politicians suggest that Ireland’s naughty voters will simply be sent back to the ballot box – this time, to make the ‘right’ decision. Thanks to its economic success, Ireland has become something of an EU poster-boy, and a perfect advertisement of the benefits of membership. ‘Leaving Ireland behind’ in a ‘two-speed Europe’ is definitely not part of the Final Solution.
There are suggestions that, in a bid to ‘encourage’ us to vote in the correct manner, the next referendum will give us a choice between “Yes to Lisbon” and “No to the EU”, thus treating with complete contempt the majority of people who may be unhappy with aspects of the Lisbon Treaty, but are generally pro-European nonetheless. What a great idea. Perhaps, in any future referendum on the issue of Abortion, the government could take a similar line. I’m sure the ‘pro-life’ brigade would be quite happy if we were asked whether we want to “Maintain the current ban on abortion forever” or “Make it compulsory to murder all innocent, cute little babies”. As shown by Robert Mugabe, there are loads of ways of getting around the inconvenient democratic process. A bit of threatening here, a loaded question there… the public just need to be ’steered in the right direction’ sometimes.
John Waters need not fret. Give it a year, and this “pampered, narcissistic and vacuous generation” will have re-entered the polling booths and ticked the right box. He’ll be happy, the government will be happy and, once again, the continental choir will be singing hand in hand. The only casualty will be democracy itself.
