Raping the rotting corpse of the Celtic Tiger!

There is no shame in being angry and afraid. At least not to me. We all need a healthy dose of rage in our lives, it greases the wheels of justice from time to time. And now, I think, is one of those times where we really need it. It is time for us to get mad. We are being run by a confederacy of wide eyed dunces, a loosely aligned group of avaricious pigs who are tied together only by their love of money and their allegiance to a party. There are no policies, there are no ideologies, there are not even ideas. Just grotesquely childlike foolishness and blindness masquerading as a plan. There is no shame in getting angry and afraid when the place you live in is being flushed slowly down the toilet. Take pride in your anger because now we really need it.

Did any of us ever think we would land ourselves in this situation ten years ago? The real tragedy is that they have blown the greatest opportunity we will ever have, perhaps the only opportunity we will ever have, to be an equal and sustainably prosperous nation. Stupidity and short sightedness won the day as we bowed to the economic policies of, firstly, an inveterate gambler and, secondly, a fat charmless oaf. Now we are subject to the idiocy of another classic breed, a career politican riding on the coattails of his family name. Lenihan sits wide eyed and terrified before the cameras, the cogs in his brain slowly turning and struggling for answers to the consistent and terrible economic nightmare that unfolds before him. He is like a cross between Gollum and Tweedle Dee - fat, greedy, stupid, wide eyed and desperate. A useless fool with no credentials to run even a chip shop.



I can't move up here without sight of the homeless...they are at every corner and from every background...young and old, Irish and non-national, sober and fucked...just people. Their hope has now disappeared. But why should we care, right? We'll survive somehow. We'll keep going...I'm digressing but it is so easy to do so. The length and breadth of this sickening mulch of ineptitude is so broad it is impossible to focus on anything for any sustained length of time. Your mind flits from catastrophe to catastophe, each time thinking "How could they have done this? How could ANYONE let this happen?!"

I intended to write this about An Bord Snip Nua but where do I begin...Colm McCarthy is a calculator. A fool who knows nothing of the real world. Never get an aging academic to do the work of a real man...he has been so far removed from the real world for so long he has lost all concept of how it works. Our international reputation is built to a large degree on the artistic and cultural heritage we have created and yet that is where this oaf cuts first. Our economic reputation lies in tatters, now is not the time to destroy our cultural reputation. But this incompetent idiot will never understand. He has no concept of true worth, to him Ireland is a series of figures and columns. Cut, cut, cut. Is it too much to paraphrase Stalin? Possibly. But one man in poverty is a tragedy. A million is just a statistic...the books must balance in Ireland Inc.

I'm not really considering too deeply what I write. I meant this to be a jolly, fun little post when I started but it is impossible to concentrate, there is just too much... Suffice to say I'm angry now, angry and afraid. Get angry.

Most of Michael Jackson's songs were shit and now he's dead

Listen, I am fully aware at this stage that Michael Jackson is dead. I am fully aware that he had a strange and terrible life filled with misery and depression and excessive prescription drugs and dubious sexual practices and bizarre plastic surgery and a partridge in a pear tree. I am fully aware that he sold a lot of albums, made a lot of money, was the King of Pop and moonwalked to the clinic to get his skin bleached. I have been fed so much information on this freak of nature over the past three days I feel I could write his biography (However, I wouldn't waste my time on such on enterprise because what do I care about an average musician who allegedly touched kids cocks as a hobby?)

News needs to be new. That is why it is called NEWs. He's dead three days now. I never thought I'd say this but please, Sky News, please tell me about the brave boys in Iraq. Please tell me about Katie Price/Jordan/Titty O'Toole and her wild soirees in Ibiza. Please tell me about something that is happening right NOW! Please tell me ANYTHING other than MICHAEL JACKSON IS FUCKING DEAD.

And don't get me started on the idiot tabloids. 'Fatso' Murphy and 'Git' Smith and fucking 'Fingers' McGraw... they're fucking criminals, not Disney cartoon characters. You useless, pathetic cunts.

I start with the best of intentions and end up riling myself into an intense fury. Still, nothing like a bit of keyboard heroism eh?

In positive news, Blur were "well kewl" at Glasto. "Wikkid"!

Riding scooters on vacation whilst listening to the Fall

As the majority of my readership (which comprises of those I browbeat into reading this insipid nonsense) are not familiar with the 'behind the scenes' mechanics of Blogspot I have decided to compose a blog on some of the foibles of this wonderful little web service. Well, one in particular. Note the way I used the phrase 'behind the scenes' so as to conjure up images of Hollywood superstars and the global film industry, thus enticing you into reading this rubbish. In this respect I am like Heat magazine.

Let me describe to you one particular foible I always found especially unusual and somewhat charming. Cue boring exposition. For each new post I make I must insert a 'label'. The label of the blog must describe, in a word, what is contained therein. So a politics entry will receive the label politics and so on. "Very straightforward" I hear you say. However the kind folks at Blogspot, fully aware that they are dealing with legions of morons, have decided to give us examples...hm. Let me illustrate what I'm talking about with a simple JPEG image:



Always those three same examples. Scooters. Vacation. Fall. It is as if to say that we are such dullards we are unable to understand the concept of labelling. Or perhaps to say "You know you can write your blog about different things??! Here are some different things!" Nevertheless, it is a charming juxtaposition of words. For me it conjures up images of riding Lambrettas through the sunswept Californian countryside just as it begins to turn a beautiful shade of gold.

Anyway, next time I plan to write a lovely little story about the above. Now, however, I intend to watch Spain play South Africa in the Confederations Cup. Stephen Pienaar is doing a job but crusty old Villa got a cheaty goal. Bye!

It's a funny old game of two halves at the end of the day Bill.

The transfer window. Home of insanity since...well, since I don't know when. 2009 will be hailed, however, as the years "things escalated" as the man said. I remember the good old days of the 1990's when Andy/Andrew Cole moving to Manchester United for £7 million was considered extravagance beyond measure. Now we have the boy Ronaldo and the other boy Kaka moving for a combined fee of about £150 million which is a substantial amount of funds by anyone's estimation. To say I could purchase a small country for that amount of money is of course a truism but the fact is I could purchase a fairly large country for that amount these days. Any number of African banana republics are crying out for a dictatorial leader to rule over them with an iron fist of tyranny. With £150 million I could be that man. Just give me that chance.

Of course, I would get no return on my investment save perhaps for a bullet square in the head about 12 days into my reign of terror. Florentine Perez, on the other hand, believes he can make a profit from these extravagant purchases through lucrative tours and merchandising. Perez benefits from having a well established brand under his command; arguably the most popular brand in football. Add to this the global superstars who ply their trade for Real Madrid and you have an extremely potent force in terms of global merchandising. For the romantics amongst us (and I'd include myself in that category) this era of merchandising is something of a blight but the business side of football is now crucial for any club wishing for success at the very highest level.

The other great club football brands, such as Liverpool and in particular Manchester United, make no attempts to disguise how crucial their business empire is to their continued success. Tours of East Asia, where Premier League football is hugely popular, make millions of pounds out of enthusiastic fans who will pay anything to see their superstars up close and personal. Eyeing that, the Premier League have made proposals to stage games abroad each season; proposals that have been met with disgust by fans of the league. However, it is the natural progression for the league; Premier League football is now global. Fans in Ireland in particular cannot be so hypocritical as to deny fans further afield pleasures which are relatively easily available to us considering that, for a lot of us, our connection to the English club we support was created largely through the marketing of the clubs and corporations in question.

Unfortunately, as the bigger clubs gain both clout and cash by selling out to the businessmen, smaller clubs and lower league football begins to suffer. We need look no farther than our own country to see the effect the Sky Super Wednesday phenomenon has on local football where interest and attendances have dwindled hugely since the advent of Sky's strangehold on EPL coverage. But I digress...

The question is whether these purchases by Real Madrid are extremely insane or extremely pragmatic. The recent past gives some credence to the latter. Real Madrid did it with Zidane. They did it with Beckham. And both times they made huge money on their investements, with the Zidane Galactico era bringing great success to the club and Beckham bringing in huge money in terms of shirt sales and merchandising. The ante has been upped as regards the amount of investement but it is possible that huge expenditure will be at least recouped in time. Add to this the fact the Madrid have hugely increased their chances of having a successful campaign both home and abroad next year and you begin to wonder is Perez more level headed than we think.

Hard to say though. Maybe Perez and his board are business geniuses. Or maybe Dunphy was right and they've been on acid this whole time. Fear and Loathing in the Bernabeu...now that could make some serious cash.

The Irish Greens Remembrance Society...

...or how quickly promise can turn to compost. Over the last ten years, Green politics became increasingly fashionable in the Western world as the threat of climate change began to manifest itself across the world. Ridiculous hippies such as Al Gore (okay, poor example) bleated incessantly about poor old Mother Nature's struggle against the evils of mankind. Hip young thangs staged another one of these bloody annoying global concerts in an effort to heighten awareness of climate change (I think it was called I Hart Treez). And so Green politics came to be, as the kids say, "hip" and politics began to look a little bit green around the gills. Or maybe that was me, sick with the smugness of it all. Who knows.

Anyway, Ireland was a prime example of this Green shift. Economic comfort allowed certain voters the chance to support issues which, in the past, were considered on the fringes of mainstream politics. No issue was more latched on to than that of climate change. No party benefitted more from this than the Greens. Drawing support from the newly affluent middle classes and Ireland's youth, the Green Party grew steadily in strength culminating in a hugely impressive campaign in 2007's General Election. When the dust cleared, the Green Party found themselves in government with two parties whose outlooks on the environment differed so vastly from their own that it quickly became evident this coalition would end in tears.

It is not an exaggeration to say that by forming this coalition with the big business politics of Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats led the Greens to almost entirely sacrifice their ideology. The swift u-turn on their Shell to Sea policy best exemplified the sudden change that came over the Greens. Unfortunately, if you put yourself forth as an narrow interest ideological party - no matter what the ideology is - you MUST stick with that ideology no matter what the circumstances. The Greens, however, did not and swiftly alienated the voters who believed their policies would save the ozone layer or the greater spotted swamp eel or whatever other cause was in vogue that day. And, at the first opportunity afforded to them, those voters punished the Greens.

However, that is not the whole story. Economic hardship has fallen upon Ireland and with economic hardship comes a certain pragmatism amongst voters. Noeveau poor liberal voters who formerly aligned themselves with the Greens began to see the economic benefit of the left leaning policies of Labour. Indeed, left politics gained across the board with small parties such as the Socialist Party and People before Profit gaining council seats in urban areas; areas where the Green Party garnered most support.

In short, these local elections have been a disaster for the Green Party and the General Election, whenever it occurs, will punish them further. It is not beyond the realms of possibility that they will collapse as a party - as happened to the PD's. How quickly, then, that political promise can turn to shit if you don't maintain your integrity. But John Gormley et al should look on the bright side. At least shit can help grow grass.

It's a holiday surprise, and a bright one at that...

Oh, how I wish that were true. Someone, anyone, surprise me. God lads, I'd love to go on a holiday. For almost any length of time, to almost any destination. Even though the Old Country seems positively Arcadian at the moment with azure blue skies and lush green grass as far as the eye can see I still feel an urge to feck off to some mystery destination. I guess I'm just a bit tired of the routine of life. I suppose it's sometimes necessary just to take a break.

It's a funny time of the year, though, and your mid 20's are a strange time in your life. The summer, for me, always conjures up ideas of jetting off to some exotic location to drink strange cocktails and fornicate in the sand. Whilst your 20's sometimes seem as your last years of temporary freedom from the stultifying doldrums of the 9 to 5 routine. So here I am, stuck with those two ideas in my head and feeling very sorry for myself that I'm sitting at a boring desk in a boring job doing boring work. Or, as the case may be, writing this boring blog. Sometimes I feel deep hatred for all my friends who've jetted off to Australia and South America for the year. Other times it's merely an intense dislike. Those hideous, tanned, despicable, happy PRICKS.

It's hard to definitively say WHY we feel this urge to travel but let me have a go for the craic. To travel is essentially to fulfil the most basic and primal of human urges - the neverending search. For answers where none exist, for meaning in a world that may, for all we will ever know, have none. We are all looking for something, an answer to life's unanswerable. Our innate desire to travel perhaps best illustrates that. Or perhaps I'm talking a load of ould bollocks, it's been known to happen. But I think mankind will always want a new frontier, greater lands to conquer, new horizons to explore. Our search will drive us to greater things as time goes by, endless frontiers and unreachable horizons far beyond what we can imagine today. But for now, for me, anywhere will do...well, except maybe for the Middle East. I don't need my balls blown off by some deranged Muslim suicide bomber.



Although he looks like quite a nice young fella doesn't he?

What to do of an evening?

Here we are, a roaring fiend of a woman to my left, a hairy dithering lankpot to my right and me, poor little Joe, stuck in the middle. The beatings have now commenced, my harpy mate raining blows on my head with the fury and vengeance of a woman scorned.

I jest. I love those guys. They're both nice and sweet and the world is a better place with them in it. I'm patronizing now, she says.

Some people are never happy.

Hey there sportsfans!

I wrote this on the Examiner website not long back, so gee willikers, I may as well put it on here:

"The truth about Irish sports fans is as far removed from the myth as it is possible to get. We have contrived to somehow create for ourselves the reputation as the world's greatest fans but in reality that is a total sham. The truth is that we sing when we're winning. If our teams are not successful at the highest level of their game then interest quickly dwindles. Unfortunately, the LOI suffers hugely from this malaise that affects Irish sports fan.

While 4,000 is an excellent attendance for the LOI it is shameful when you consider the overall popularity of football in this country. Whilst every man and his dog will pin his flag to a Premiership, or even Scottish, team the interest in the LOI is minimal. The barstoolers will point to the quality of the football - "I'm not paying 15 quid to watch that rubbish". Yet they will happily spend 15 quid on pints to watch the big Celtic game on the weekend - despite the fact that quality wise the SPL is not far removed from the LOI.

The GAA and rugby are often cited as the competition to the LOI but many (if not most) sportsfans (bit of Americana for you there) I know follow all three disciplines. Following one sport should not impinge on the enjoyment of another. If we look at it from a grassroots level and at the membership of local soccer clubs throughout the country we see the soccer is a hugely popular sport. But that doesn't translate to the LOI.

The truth hurts. And the truth is that we, as a general public, are only interested in success. Every year for the LOI is a struggle, some clubs like Cork City living week on week. Irish people prefer the glitz, glamour and success of a league in another country, a country whose sporting failures we then revel in. Hypocrisy? Perhaps. But it is certainly a very sad and painful truth."

Nothing like waxing lyrical over football.

Nothing Added but Balls

I became very lazy once again and now, having at last found the time to type out some prattle for you darling folks out there, I cannot think of anything to write about. Ideas, as is their wont, have come and gone in the past two weeks since I last deigned to visit this little blog and now I am bereft of inspiration. What I actually need is people to read this rubbish and tell me that I'm an idiot. Such heinous slurs against my character will motivate such fury within me that my keyboard hero instincts will kick in. I will then create the most furiously beautiul, or beautifully furious, piece of prose with which to DESTROY the feeble minds of my Interwebtual assailants.

Instead I just sit here slack jawed, praying that the Gods will look kindly upon me and send a little idea fizzing down from the heavens just for little old Joe. Just a little one is all I need. I'm a simple man.

Rest assured, I will be back when I think of something. I swears it.

And a thousand cheesemakers whisper under their breath..."Edam well better brie". Felt I had to crowbar that one in somewhere. Oh dear.

What?

The idea is that parrot society is very equal because of their constant efforts to achieve parity/parroty. And their women's lib slogan is "Polly wants a cracker." That's the general idea. I don't know what to do with it though. You work it out you prick.

Apocalypse Sow

Oh my god. We are all going to die and there's nothing we can do about it. The cloven paw of Satan is leaving it's mark all over our doomed planet, from the arid deserts of Mexico to the crumbling ruins of our Western cities. Silence outside, punctured only by the lone siren screaming in the distance, carrying another of the plague victims to an early grave. A global Uniflu initiative fails. We are told not to panic but it is too late, too late for any of us. The virus spreads like warm margarine over the toast we call the Earth. Soon our globe is nought but a shattered dystopia, run by the few surviving mutants who have been chemically altered beyond recognition by this unstoppable virus. Zombie pigs roam wild through the deserted cityscapes, preying on whatever life that can be found. Then nothingness. Silence reigns. THE END.

We're not going to die, of course. But this swine flu idiocy has mushroomed way beyond anyone's control. You might say, huhuhuh, that, huhuhuh, the media have made a right PIG'S EAR of the coverage. Ah, I can't get away from the bloody nonsense. I will say that it is slightly scarier than SARS. I think that killed one man and his dog. Bloody newspapers. To paraphrase Hunter S Thompson, we shouldn't take any guff from those swine.

Leinster 25-6 Munster. The bandwagon is beginning to wobble.

I feel jaded and tired after bank holiday festivities. Mushy brained and woolly headed. Sayonara young blogees. KEEP AWAY FROM MEXICANS.



It is sad that a T Mobile advert fills me with such hope for humanity. Crafty advertising execs. They've got me!

We Have Ways of Making You Think

The news, or what we once understood too BE "the news", has ceased to be. What we NOW call the news is advertising, marketing, shallow PR masquerading as things YOU MUST KNOW. News stories oscillate between mind numbing special effects, worthless bluster and sickening fear. They deliver us a calculated, carefully engineered message designed to make us feel X and think Y. And I do think why?! WHY IS LINDSAY BREAKING DOWN AGAIN?!!?! OMG! But in all seriousness all I ask from the news is the accurate delivery of facts. I don't want hyperbole. I don't want poorly disguised opinions masquerading as facts. And I certainly don't want a morbid deathwatch of a mother of two whoever she may be. We're slowly degenerating back to the level of public hangings. Still, there's nothing like a good TV war these days. Watch those laser guided bombbombs fly!!! Wheeeeee....

Death, misery and war have, of course, become the darlings of the newsmedia. And we certainly need to know about death, misery and war throughout the world so we can at least have the desire to avoid it. However, events such as the Madeleine McCann kidnapping case or Jade Goody's struggle with cancer are analysed to the point of filthy sickness. Tragedies turn into charades to boost ratings and put, as the man said, bums on seats. If no tragedy is available, one can easily be manufactured. War coverage, meanwhile, is often more akin to a Hollywood movie. HEROES!!! VILLAINS!!! BOOM CHKCHKCHKCHKCHK!!!

Through its over the top hyperbole the news media generates fear, anger, sadness - basic emotions - among its consumers. What the people delivering this news desire is an immediate visceral reaction from its viewers and readers - the delivery of facts has become secondary. They don't want us to think primarily, rather they want us to feel. To achieve this end, the basic reality of events is grossly distorted to the point where news stories read more like pulp fiction. Human beings become monsters, the world becomes a lawless wasteland, terrorists lurk behind every post box, no one is safe...no...NOT EVEN YOU.

In short, the news media has to a large degree ceased being objective for quite some time. Behind every carefully manicured story lies an agenda, be it political or merely monetary. Of course, no one is truly objective. But what any of us should expect is at least an attempt at objectivity by our journalists. The agendas of news corporations appear to becoming more and more overtly clear as the days fly by until soon the only news we can trust to form our own opinions on will be what we see with our own eyes.

There are, of course, bastions of objective journalism alive today particularly in the print media. But they operate increasingly on the fringes. No longer can we trust the mainstream media to deliver us accurate facts. Even the BBC, once the standard bearer for its news coverage, has gone weak at the knees and stumbled gracelessly off to the side of hyperbole and slack jawed idiocy.

Mass media has incresingly began to treat us as brainless dullards with the attention spans of goldfish with ADD. Unfortunately, no one has ever gotten poor underestimating the public and thus the snowball gathers pace. Not long now before we're a nation of drooling zombies. Still, beats thinking right? Right you guys?!

I highly recommend to anyone who hasn't seen them both Charlier Brooker's Newswipe and Screenwipe and Noam Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent - both better analyses of the newsmedia than I could ever hope to put to paper. Have to dash. There's a Guantanamo Bay special on CNN about the lady who sews the orange jumpsuits to keep those evil doers in their places. Wow, she's just like you and me! Ahhh....

Peter Andre's Insania

Christ this blogging business is a bit difficult to keep up with eh? What with the toing and the froing and the hipping and the hopping and so on and so forth. And so at last I return to Blogspot to update the globe on all the wondrous events that have occurred in my life... watch out globe! THIS IS GONNA BE GREAT!!!!

We're watching Hitch. Sometimes you look at your life and you question what you have become. Have I become a romcomming, Notebook loving, walk remembering PONCE?!?! However, I am told there is nothing else on despite the US Masters being nought but a button click away.

A lot of strange things have taken place since lost I posted on here. Very strange things indeed. A BLACK MAN has become President of the United States. A cancer victim has become the media's favourite bag of jollies. Liverpool Football Club played well for about 3 months. And I have joined a goat slaughtering cult that worships the voodoo snake god Damballah.

First of all, Barack Obama. Can one man change the world? People seem to think so. It is hard to think of an another time in history where such pressure was mounted on one man's shoulders. He is a powerful orator, a man with a strong sense of right and wrong and that rarest of things - an American president with a social conscience. But politics is a fickle business and we have to question whether or not he will have a) the time and b) the political support to realise his ideas. But whilst it is always hard to change the least any of us can do us try. For that both Obama and the American people deserve kudos TO THE EXTREEEEMMMEE!!!!

Secondly, this Jade Goody fiasco. I would like to prefix this by saying Jade Goody was, after all that's been said and done, a regular human being. She is neither a saint nor a devil, a princess nor a whore. But she died a delicious media product for us to consume, yum yum, cancer is fun! It's hard to overstate how despicable this whole circus became. I know this whole saga has been analyzed to death by all the usual talking heads but it is worthy of looking at. It is easy, as always, to blame the tabloid media for all the ills of modern society but it is about time we began to take responsibility. We eat this savagery up. Slow painful death, it seems, is a profitable enterprise.

Peter Andre was right. The world is an insane place.

Time is like a river, history repeats...

...and I return to blogging whilst nestled neath my sheets. I don't know do any of you do that, I feel an irresistible urge to rhyme as often as possible in my head. Or out loud as the case may be. Approximately 7 months ago I started this blog with the best of intentions. This was to be my public little scrapbook where I would air my dirty linen in public for all the proletariat to see, to see how the aristocrats live and work and breathe. However since I have become unemployed in the intervening period I felt the blogs purpose became redundant. I am no longer one of the blue blooded employed, I can no longer lord myself over the doley tracksuits, the brandy soaked denizens of pub porches, huddling and clutching their cigarettes whilst watching puddles shimmer in the rain. Nay, I am but an urchin, a ragamuffin, an unemployed scamp. How did this happen? Well this little thing called the credit crunch intervened in my life in the past year and a half and boy oh boy did it take quite a sock at old Joey Geebags.

Anyway, it's not all doom and gloom. I am still, for the most part, ninja. Economic hardship does not, after all, affect ones innate charm and good looks - both qualities of which I have in spades (if not shovels). So life is progressing reasonably well. I am quite content. The air is sweet, the wind whistles my tunes and the rain patters most satisfyingly against my window. Jobs come and go my friends. Contentment is something that cannot be applied for no matter what the quality of your CV. And so for that I thank God, Allah, Vishnu and whatever other deity wishes for my gratitude.

When asked the question "Can you live without working?" Raoul Vaneigem replied "One can ONLY live without working." His contention being that work was a necessity, something we endured to survive. The essence of life, he maintained, was creativity, the antithesis of which was monotonous and sonambulant work. So let's hope I can use this brief period of unemployment to do something worthwhile eh?

And thus ends my latest blog entry, perhaps my last for some time. Who knows? So let's 'ave a noice little video to 'ave a laff at eh? Say what you like about Oasis and the Gallagher brothers but I challenge you not to admire Noel's attitude towards life. Adios friends.