A nation of pigs
Something is happening to the children of Ireland. Since I’ve twigged its cause, I’m seeing it more and more every day… or rather hearing it.
Just as the older kids are all awesoming in their slightly yankee twangs, the smaller ones are picking up weird but very sweet English accents which fall out in questions and inflections and introductions like these:
-Hellaw, mai name is Peppa Pig, and this is my little brutha Geoooooooje.
-I thought your name was Sarah?
-Neeeeuo. It’s Peppa Pig, and he is my little brutha Geooooooooooje!
It’s the fathers of Ireland that I feel sorry for. Peppa’s father Daddy Pig (obviously), is portrayed as an awful gobshite. His entire family constantly poke fun at his obesity and make him run and climb things because they know he’ll make a tit of himself and they can all point and laugh. He’s hopeless at flat-pack assembly and general DIY and while this may be true for a lot of Irish men, they don’t need reminding of it so harshly.
AND I worry about the erosion potential of Irish soil… our government will have to pay out millions to fix the pot-hole damage caused by the increase in incidents of children (and adults) jumping in muddy puddles. It’s all very irresponsible.
Ban Peppa Pig!
… ah no I’m on’y messing. I do love her so.
Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?
Xbox gaming is a bit like smoking. Those who don’t do it just cannot understand why those who do it, do it. So I’ll tell you, in my own gamey way.
My reasons are threefold;
1. It’s good for your hand-eye coordination and so therefore must be good for your brain and its fight to stay sensible in this crazy world. My children will thank me for this someday, when I’d rather be leveling up on a shoot-me-up than flirting with the toaster.
2. There are emotions in day-to-day life that need releasing. Painting is something that I would love to do, but blowing things up works too, as does firing a trench-gun into somebody else’s face.
3. I like to abuse nine-year-olds.
Oh wait… that came out wrong.
I mean I like to return the abuse that nine-year-olds give me.
At the beginning of each game, a wee speaker symbol pops up beside other online player’s names, and you could either be met with pregnant silence or a barrage of verbal abuse from some kid… usually an English kid for some reason. It would demand that I answer it, and so I would strap on my head-set for some fun.
(I should divulge right now that the game in question is usually ‘Call of Duty-Black Ops Nazi Zombies’ which is strictly over 18s given its extremely bloody nature and strong language.)
Four people meet in a room on the first level, there are four windows through which zombies wearing Nazi uniforms are trying to enter. Each player must defend its own window and help its team-mates, or abuse them as they wish. This is where it gets interesting… in a consequence-free world, you can say what ever you damn well want into your wee headset thingy.
If some pre-teen gets on there, and tells me I’m a Paddy Pikey scumbag and I can’t shoot for shit, what can I do but explain to him why his mummy doesn’t love him and throw hand grenades at him and nag him into taking up football thus mucking up his gameplay? There are very weird conversations to be had on Xbox Live.
I thoroughly advise you try it.
Stop playing with yourself Daddy
‘There’s an app for that’. You know that ad on the telly (there’s an app for that too) for iPhones which shows all the fantabulous (there’s an app for that) things that it can do? I don’t have an iPhone, but TAT does… I’m sure it’s lovely but if it won’t flip sausages while I colour in pictures of Spongebob, I have no interest.
He won’t go to the toilet without it now. We walk past distant gunfire, waiting for our turn on the loo while TAT conquers spy allies. Sometimes he catapaults birds. Puppychild has to thump loudly and tell him to stop playing with himself frequently which is wrong in so many ways.
“It won’t wipe your arse though will it?” I scoff at him when he finally emerges with a burnt matchstick and a pins-and-needles limp. “No app for that, is there?”
It’s all very affecting, this waiting around for TAT and his crapps. I don’t know if there’s a helpline, but I’m pretty sure there’s an easy way to look for one if there is.
Death of a Fad
I volunteer as a docket stamper in the school library on Friday mornings. It’s like having an inside feed into the popculture world, much like @BreakingNews is to Twatterrers.
Today I overheard one eight-year-old scoff at another…
“Oh my Gawd, you don’t still read High School Musical books do you? Isn’t that… like… so boring now?”
All my malenky little hairs stood endwise real horrorshow, O my brother, I was that happy to hear it.
Maybe that’s the start of of Gee and Whineapple’s decline on the Gogglebox so? Fingers crossed!
Valentine musings from the overworked and underpaid
Valentine’s day has always annoyed me a bit. As a late-blooming teenager I had always hoped that an anonymous card would find its way through my letterbox intented for my spotty four-eyed face, but it never did. One year an anonymous card did appear, but it was addressed to Billy Burn who lived at the other end of my road. A set up most likely… possibly by Billy himself, more likely by somebody else who wanted a cheap laugh. I can’t remember whether I delivered it or not, I hope in hindsight that I stuffed it into the exhaust-pipe of his dad’s car, but that’s unlikely.
Since starting on the sordid path of dating, it’s just gone from one extreme to the other… lavender-filled balloons and cheesy teddybears with crappy slogans like ‘You to me are like a spanner; every time I see you, my nuts tighten‘ were given to my by fellas who wanted to know what colour my knickers were, and when I finally hooked up with TAT, I got little or nothing. I prefer little or nothing by far.
This year, Laughingboy showed his love for me by producing a hefty dump in his nappy in the small hours of the morning. When I checked his schoolbag for baby-wipes, I found a sweet glitterish heart-shaped card with painty fingerprints all over it, and a wee bag of homemade chocolates. I let Puppychild show her love for her daddy by jumping on him violently at 5pm to wake him up for his night-time shift. TAT showed his love for me by reading me excerpts from Bill Bryson’s ‘The Lost Continent’ while I scraped eggy gunge from lunchtime kitchen saucepans, and I showed him my love for him by buying him an extremely violent Xbox game – ‘Army of Two, the 40th day’ – a shoot-em-up game that can only be played by in co-op with another. (What could be more romantic than annihalating things together over a glass of wine?)
I will be celebrating my love for myself tonight by lying on the wooden floor and listening to John Coltrane surrounded by candles for an hour or two before digging into a can of Guinness and a game of Assassin’s Creed.
Hallmark didn’t get a brass cent. Ha.
El Duderino
The naming of the foetus is an epic task, especially when you haven’t met it yet. Of course there’s always the option of naming it after its zone of conception, but who wants to live their life with ‘Ballybunion’ for a moniker?
Baby name books are pointless, especially Irish baby name books. From Morrigan to Aoife to Siobhán, everyone has something mean to say about a name, (Siobhán your knickers, yer da’s on his way…) or somebody already knows a person by that name and doesn’t like them, or it rhymes with something rude… or maybe it’s just plain naff. Nah, if you ask me, the only way to choose a name is to scan the credits at the end of a film – this method always spews forth interesting possibilities.
Take my friend for instance… she’s due her babby in three weeks time, and she loves the name Charlie. She cannot name her kid Charlie, however, because her surname is Brown. Hell, Snoopy hasn’t been aired for years, if you ask me she’s on to a winner, but her family won’t let up nagging her into changing her mind.
Then there’s my other friend, who gave birth last month and named her baby girl ‘Kitty’. It’s not short for anything, Kitty is her name and Kitty is what she shall be called. I love it, but it’s undoubtedly quite an eccentric name, which beautifully mirrors a very eccentric family. My family is not eccentric, at least TAT’s side isn’t… I can imagine the multitudes of rolled eyeballs, the quick snide remarks directed towards the stoner family at the Christmas table. It’s just not worth it.
No, The Accidental Terrorist and I came up with an idea long ago, we had a flippant moment during a private viewing of The Big Lebowski:
Dude.
Why can’t I call my child Dude? “The Dude. His Dudeness… Duder, or El Duderino if you’re not into the whole brevity thing” to quote The Dude himself.
Yeah, yeah, I know why I can’t call the child ‘Dude’, because someday he’ll grow up and will most likely want a job that doesn’t involve canvas or scripts, or burger flipping. Such is life. Or is it?!?! Such is the beauty of the Irish language perhaps… like the phrase ‘Mahogany Gaspipes’, the word ‘Dude’ could be Irish – all you have to do is add a fada and an ‘i’ somewhere, and the problem is solved, as follows:
-Duaid; short for Duaided, means ‘Evil Death’… who picks on a kid named Evil Death?!?
-Dúid; short for Dúidín, meaning ‘Pipe’. Grandad would be so proud.
-Dóid; meaning ‘Fist’… again, schoolyard politics are in favour of this one.
-Díud; short for Díthugad, meaning ‘Extermination’… a future in pest control perhaps?
-Diúd; short for Diúdán, meaning ‘Giddiness’, which is fitting.
-Duíd; a version of ‘David’, which my mother called me during the first three weeks of my confusing life.
But maybe the most fitting yet:
-Dúd… meaning ‘Mouth‘, because his would be one more to feed.
I do so hope it’s a boy!
Who says football isn’t entertaining?
I’m in a sitting-room with five men, our bellies full of battered cod and chips, our glasses full… the telly’s on and a reminder suddenly pops up on the screen to tell us that ‘Match of the Day’ is about to start. Half of us cheer, the other half are of no discernible opinion.
Various tense moments of recent soccer matches play out to choruses of groans and ‘oooh’s and ‘yay’s from the lads, and I bite my nails. I wait for Manchester United highlights to hit… I wait for my moment. I am prepared.
Gary Lineker waffles as the screen changes and Man United appears for the highlights. I watch the body language of the lads carefully and wait to pounce. A dude runs towards the goal with the football along the outside of the field, he passes it to his buddy in the middle, who passes it back to the first bloke, the ball gets closer and closer..
“G’WAN!!!” the lads shout in unison.
Several defending lads try and fail to grab the ball, it gets closer and closer to the net. Nearly…
“PASS IT!” scream the lads.
The goalkeeper starts to look nervous. Nearly…
The ball only a few feet from the net, my time has come to screw things up.
“Hey lads, isn’t there a bloke on this team called Dimitar Berbatov?” I ask coyly.
“Yeah s’right” their eyes remain glued to the screen, their attention un-broken.
“Is it me or does that name sound like someone’s farted in the bath?!?”
I sit back with satisfaction as wine is ejected from nostrils and the goal on the TV is entirely missed while grown men giggle like schoolboys.
Ha. Fart humour. Gets ‘em every time.
Dean Windass.
It’s like shooting fish in a barrel.
Take Pwiicautions
The Wii small hours this morning found TAT, his dodgy Italian friend and me surrounding the TV set, psyching ourselves up for a Wii game of tennis or two.
Various screenshots flashed in front of our eyes as the characters were being set up and the controls configured, the final screenshot advertised that gaming might be made more comfortable with the use of Wii jackets.
“Why’s that?” … I asked… ”is that so you don’t crack someone’s skull open when it gets in the way of a back-hand shot?”
“Nah, it’s so that when you let go of the controller accidentally, it won’t break when it hits the wall” guessed the dodgy Italian friend.
“Maybe it stops your hand getting sweaty or from cramping up, y’know, ergonomics and all that. Is that a word?” I fought with the rubbery cover and dirty thoughts crossed my mind as I did so, but I didn’t voice them. That’s New Year’s resolution no. 16.
“Nope” said TAT “you’re both wrong. It’s to prevent S.T.Wiis!”
Groan.
Xtra Smug
I pushed XtraVision’s door open and found it as grudging as my want to start the confrontation I’d been building up since the final episode of the box-set I was returning.
“Hi” I said to the grizzly looking teeshirt behind the counter – “I’ve got a complaint about this rental, I feel ripped off.” The girl said nothing, just looked at me expectantly and gave me a micro shrug of indifference.
I stood in blank abandon for a second. “Umm… this ‘Entourage’ box-set was only four hours long from start to finish, but I paid a tenner to rent it for a week. The characters were pretty shallow too, but I s’pose that’s not your fault… “ I laughed nervously and inwardly kicked myself for being such a sap.
“So?”
“So… when I rent a box-set for a ten euros a week, I expect it to last for a week - pretty much like the others do – and not for just two nights. I was expecting at least sixteen hours of entertainment, but I only got four! That’s a rip-off!”
“I don’t price ‘em.” She shrugged again and turned her back on me, assuming that the conversation was over. I fucking hate that.
“HEY” I stated. I sensed her eyes rolling as she stopped in her tracks and turned slowly, fixing a BDI on me. “Notice how I’m being nice here? See how easy-going I am? I’m not that customer, okay? I just think I’m owed compensation… I’m not demanding refunds here or slapping my fists on the counter screaming for the manager… y’know?” My tone was dry. God, I hate these conversations.
“I’m the manager here.” Her demeanour was infallible. Her teeshirt was her mojo and I understood. I remembered vividly.
“Oh. Really? Okay then… I’ll guess I’ll take these then.” I sheepishly handed over three DVDs. Her civil politeness thereafter made me want to hurl bags of M&Ms at her face, but I said nothing, I just raged at my weakness and at XtraVision’s ability to crush my spirit once again.
I used to work in XtraVision see. Their regiment is tight as a nut, run by iron maidens hatched in jam-jars. All staff had to be off the premises by 11:00pm which gives you exactly ten minutes to sort out the returned videos and settle up the accounts (while the customers are still milling around) at the end. Not to mention all the hoovering and polishing and emptying of ashtrays – ahh, the good old days… they gave me regular bollickings for hanging around too late.
Friends of mine used to try to get me to cancel any owings on their account, and I would have if I was able. The computer system needs everything but your date of birth on each transaction, it’s airtight. I couldn’t figure out how to cheat the thing for love nor money, it had my heart broke, as mammy would say.
In the end I got kicked out when they thought I’d stolen a shit load of mobile phone credit. Remember when the codes used to come in cards? There were baskets of them just behind the counter, and I took my eye off them for a few seconds to throw a few returned videos into the back-room one night, so sue me! The area wasn’t the poshest place and was frequented by all sorts of nutters,
and gangs of nutters. And little groups of nutter children… they were most obviously robbed. I wouldn’t mind, but there’s a CCTV camera that absorbs the whole beautiful lot. Fuck all use that turned out to be.
Also, their Christmas party was a disaster but I’m not going to go into that.
I have no cable TV. Xtra Vision have swallowed up Movie Magic which was my favourite haunt, so now I am their bitch as there is nothing else in this town.
I must have invested thousands of euros in that place by now, the ungrateful fuckers.
Entourage my hole!!!
Brain diversion
In my heightened state of snottiness, my attention span wanes. I become a chronic remote control flicker, fed by the sheer monotany that is television. Last night I watched 15 minutes of film after film after film, but nothing was satisfying enough… then I found the perfect flick.
Vampire in Brooklyn… cheap laughs, Eddie Murphy and a prophetic painter. Visual bubble-gum. What more could a body ask for?
No plot breakdowns from me, though… couldn’t be arsed. Instead, here’s a rather inspirational speech that Eddie made while dressed as a vampire pretending to be a Pastor.
We come here time after time and we talk about the same old same old.
- We talk about Jesus. – That’s right.
Jesus said and Jesus wept.
Jesus heard and Jesus walked over.
I don’t wanna talk about Jesus.Cos as the big man teaches us, there’s two sides to every story.
Not one but two. A story is not one-sided.
A story has duality. There’s two sides to every story.
Which brings to mind the phrase “necessary evil”.I know many of you hear that phrase and say,
“That don’t even make no sense to me.
“Can’t be no such thing as necessary – how’s evil necessary?
“That don’t match. That’s plaids and stripes, evil and necessary.”
You see, because without bad, there is no good.
Without light, there is no dark, you need both these things.
You hear what I’m saying?If every day is a sunny day, well, then, what’s a sunny day?
Well, the bottom line, what I’m trying to tell you tonight,
is that evil…eeeevil… is necessary.
Evil is necessary, thereby, if it’s necessary, evil…
- Evil… – …must be good.
Evil is good.
That’s what I think. Evil must be good, must be good.
- Let me hear y’all say it… – Evil is good.Don’t be ashamed of yourself, boy.
Don’t be ashamed cos you went out and got you a little ass!
- Ass is good! – That’s right!
I know many of y’all may be saying, “How can he say ass is good?”
How y’all think y’all got here?
Ass is good! Evil’s good and ass is good.
And if you get you a piece of evil ass…
You have absolutely no idea how entertaining that speech is to a girl hepped up on cough-medicine.
