I was crouched in a darkened corner of my living room, I had my knees above my head. Every time I rubbed my knees together, I let little-chirps out of me. I was of course pretending to be a cricket. As my high pitched-chirps reverberated round the room a tear came to my eye as I remembered the late, great Buddy Holly. What a sad loss Buddy was to the cricket community. No cricket worth his salt will ever forget Buddy Holly and his stuttering, stammering, "Oh Boy." Buddy Holly did more for crickets than Sting ever did for the PSNI or Cliff Richard ever did for shadows. I sighed, sobbed, rubbed my knees together again and emitted a sad, forlorn, melancholy-chirp. My golly it was a melancholy-chirp.
I was just considering selling my honour and buying a melodian when I heard the scrape of a key in the lock of the front door. I scuttled behind a pale blue pouffeeand peeped over the pouffee by raising my eyes higher than the pouffee. The door opened on two hinges--I didn't know it could do that! I always left and came in by climbing up the chimney and down a rope ladder made from-rope. It was Tommy my cat. I watched as Tommy took off his little camel hair coat and hung it up carefully on a coat hook. What a prissy little pussy he is. Why could he not just throw the coat on the floor and walk over it? Tommy adjusted his little grey cardigan with the one pocket in the front, gave a little-prissy cough and sat down in an armchair to read the morning papers. I leaped up from behind the pouffee and yelled, "BOO!"Tommy never flinched, he just sat there and said, "Boo-Who?". I yelled, "Boo-Who! I'm sad because Buddy Holly is dead." Tommy looked at me over the paper and drawled, "That's not much of a Knock-Knock is it? It's not funny, it makes no sense and you ruined the timing. If I were you I would not give up the day job and Belfast does need a village idiot."Was that an insult or praise? Being stupid I had no way of knowing. I spun round like Wonder Woman to get my brain in gear and said. "Tommy, what's the headline in today's paper?" "The same as it has been for the last 50 years," said Tommy, holding up the paper with a banner headline that screamed. "ULSTER AT THE CROSSROADS!" "Still at the crossroads," I said. "When are we going to move on? When are we going to put our differences behind us? When are we going to spill our sweat and not our blood? When are we going to stop eating flags? And when are we going to help the old age pensioners and lift that stupid ban about, No Zimmer Frames On The Motorway?
Suddenly Tommy gave an effete, feline chuckle and cried, "Listen to this. "Fatwa Taken Out On Fat Boy Nolan.""In the name of all that's holey, torn and shredded," I yelled. "Read the article Tommy, read the article." "Late last night," read Tommy, "A fatwa was issued on one of Ulster's best known and hated radio presenters-Tubby Nolan. Speaking from a very thin house on the Malone Road, the Grand Thinee of Weight Watchers, Mr Orvile McDoodle said, "As from midnight tonight, all members of Weight Watchers are honour bound to rid the world of the biggest glutton that ever lumbered on two feet, Steven "Tubby" Nolan. We are sick sore and tired of Tubby thumbing his nose at us, with a cake in one hand and a fish supper in the other. In my capacity as the Grand Thin'ee of Weight Watchers, I have therefore issued a Fatwa on Tubby Nolan for persistent gloating, gobbling, munching, crunching, slabbering, babbling and I accuse Mr Steven "Tubby" Nolan of grand gluttony on a scale not seen since the good ship S.S. Moderation, carrying 500 vegetarians was washed up on a cannibal island just off the port of Cork. My dear wife Winnie should be standing with me tonight, but unfortunately, dear Winnie slipped down between a crack in the floor boards in our bed room. Even as I speak, the pest control officers are trying to get Winnie out by using metal coat hangers and dangling little pieces of sausage on the end of a stick. To all members of Weight Watchers I say, "The dragon of gluttony must be slain and to Tubby Nolan I say, remember the words of Brutus in the Senate when he stood up, pulled down his toga and screamed, Julius Caesar, do you here me? We're gonna hunt you down and smoke you out!"
Tommy looked at me with a trembling lip he found in a packet of Cornflakes and whispered, "Old jelly belly is in for it this time.". "Yes," I said. "The very name--Weight Watchers fills the stoutest heart with fear. Weight Watchers are worse than the Mafia, worse than Al Qaeda and nearly as bad as the Legion of Mary and you can't keep them out. They are so thin they can slither in of the least crack.""Poor old Tubby," said Tommy, "I wonder where he's hiding his obese body tonight?" "There is no hiding from,--Weight Watchers," I yelled. "They have spies everywhere."
Suddenly, there was a fierce pounding at the door, "Help me!" yelled a fat voice. "Help me, it's your little friend-Tubby, for God's sake let me in!"Tommy ran to switch off the light. We lay there in the darkness, listening to the frantic pounding of the Goodyear Blimp. Then, we heard his large shoes clump away, followed by the sinister pitter-patter of thin shoes, that could only belong to--Weight Watchers. Soon, they would be all over him, like ants on a big, fat grub. What a way to go-and he still has so little to give.
Get my books Rosie Ryan's letters to Gerry Anderson and other books from...
jpmcmenamin@gmail.com
And you will find Rosie at. www. rosie-ryan.blogspot.com
Monday 26 January 2009
Monday 12 January 2009
THE PARABLE OF THE PASSIVE PUSSY
I tried in vain to hide, but it was no good, dawn found me hanging from a coat hook on the back of the front door, I was pretending to be John Daly's camel hair coat, with a used tissue and a broken biscuit in the pocket. "You can't hide from dawn or dusk," I said, as I unhooked myself from the door and fell in an ungainly heap on the floor. As I struggled to get up, Tommy my cat attracted my attention, by hitting me over the head with a leather bound copy of, "How Piles Ruined My Life" by the right Rev Howard "sore bum" McHugh. I quickly drew a gun on a piece of paper and attempted to shoot Tommy. The gun went-click. In my hurry I had forgotten to draw any bullets. Tommy drew a stone and happed it off my head, I drew an OUCH in a balloon and held it above my head. Tommy drew a water pistol and pulled the trigger. The gun went-click. In his haste the wily feline had forgotten to draw any h20. I drew a net and flung it at Tommy who became entangled in the mesh. I leaped on Tommy and battered the head off him with a rubber mallet I had drawn on the back of a signed photograph of Joseph Stalin riding a donkey at Blackpool. I held on to the struggling Tommy and hissed, "Oi, what's your game then?" "Poker," gasped Tommy, so I hit Tommy over the head with the poker and it was goodnight Vienna. When Tommy came round he was still alive so I said to him, "What was all that about then?" Tommy rubbed the French bemp on his head and replied, "I was merely trying to inform you that tomorrow is the anniversary of your late daddy's demise".
A tsunami of latent grief overcame me. I rent my garments in a rendering machine, poured ashes on my head from my late granny's urn and began to bawl, lament, keen and cry.
"Oh, daddy why did you go and die? Why did you decease yourself and make yourself dead? Why did you pass over? Why did you go up above? Why did you depart? Why did you shuffle of this mortal coil? You warned me about shuffling, "Pick up your big feet you ugly idigt" you would say, "And stop shuffling about there, like a donkey with turned up feet." Ah, daddy, daddy!" I yelled, "Why did you go? Why did you leave me? Why did you stand too close to a candle flame wearing a ragged kilt and leave me nothing to hold on to but a gutted sporran?"
Tommy ran to me, held me close and muttered "There, there." "Where? where?" I sobbed. "Time is a great healer," muttered Tommy. "I know," I sobbed, "and it's also good for boiling eggs, if you convert it into sand and confine it in a special glass container."
Next morning, dawn found me and Tommy at the graveyard, digging up my late daddy. Just as we reached the black bin liner that dear daddy was buried in, the grave digger ran up, full of ire and Scots porridge oats. "Oi!" yelled the keeper of the dead, "What are you two doing with that dead cadaver?" "This is the remains of my late, dead daddy," I yelled, "Today is the anniversary of his death, so we are taking him to the cinema as a special treat." "That's all right," said the planter of cadavers, "But have him back by ten o'clock. I lock the gates at ten o'clock and if he isn't back in his grave, I will have to make a note of it in the register."
What a great day we had! Tommy and I hauled my late daddy onto a number 37 bus and headed for the cinema. We bought my late daddy popcorn, sweets and crisps and took our seats. The film was called, "They Walk By Night" It was a very scary film, Tommy and I hid behind the seats, but my late daddy just sat there, stoically and impassive.What a brave little cadaver my dead daddy is. During the intermission, I saw lots of family's with dead cadavers sitting among them. It's good to know that death is no hindrance to a good night out. As Tommy and I came away from the graveyard, I felt-good. I felt a strong bond with my late daddy, I never really got to know him when he was alive, but now we could--bond, find-closure and perhaps, in time, I would feel less guilty about all the times I had pushed him down the stairs.
Later that night, as Tommy and I sat drinking old times and talking about coco I looked at Tommy and said, "Tommy, you are very-passive, where as I am very-ratty, how so?" Tommy took a sip of old times and said, "When I was a young kitten, I was veritable weather vane.My mood changed from minute to minute.""NO!" I yelled. "Oh yes," said Tommy, "but I took myself in hand. I travelled to darkest Gortin to study with the Guru of passivity, Willie John McGrundle." "Not--THE Willie John McGrundle?" I cried. "The very one," said Tommy. "For five long years I studied the art of passivity and today I am proud to say, I am as passive as Mr Passivity, who lives in No 27 Passivate cottage, in Passiveville." "Well I never!" I said, as I crossed my legs and gave birth to a welp of ankles. Tommy and I just sat there, staring into the fire and listening to the crickets chirp, "Oh Boy." Five, or was it six days later? I looked at Tommy and said, "What ever became of Willie John McGrundle, the Gortin Guru of passivity?"
"Dead," said Tommy, blessing himself, "Yes, Willie John McGrundle, the Gortin Guru of passivity is dead. He was caught doing the double by the Dole people," said Tommy, "Flew into an awful rage and died from a massive heart attack, foaming at the mouth like a rabid dog." We sat there in silence, then I said, "we could always go down to Gortin and take Willie John to the cinema."
"Nah," said Tommy "It's too far and besides, I just feel too doggone-passive to bother about him."
Rosie Ryan's letters to Gerry Anderson and other books available at Eason's and below.
jpmcmenamin@gmail.com
Visit Rosie at.. www.rosieryan.blogspot.com
A tsunami of latent grief overcame me. I rent my garments in a rendering machine, poured ashes on my head from my late granny's urn and began to bawl, lament, keen and cry.
"Oh, daddy why did you go and die? Why did you decease yourself and make yourself dead? Why did you pass over? Why did you go up above? Why did you depart? Why did you shuffle of this mortal coil? You warned me about shuffling, "Pick up your big feet you ugly idigt" you would say, "And stop shuffling about there, like a donkey with turned up feet." Ah, daddy, daddy!" I yelled, "Why did you go? Why did you leave me? Why did you stand too close to a candle flame wearing a ragged kilt and leave me nothing to hold on to but a gutted sporran?"
Tommy ran to me, held me close and muttered "There, there." "Where? where?" I sobbed. "Time is a great healer," muttered Tommy. "I know," I sobbed, "and it's also good for boiling eggs, if you convert it into sand and confine it in a special glass container."
Next morning, dawn found me and Tommy at the graveyard, digging up my late daddy. Just as we reached the black bin liner that dear daddy was buried in, the grave digger ran up, full of ire and Scots porridge oats. "Oi!" yelled the keeper of the dead, "What are you two doing with that dead cadaver?" "This is the remains of my late, dead daddy," I yelled, "Today is the anniversary of his death, so we are taking him to the cinema as a special treat." "That's all right," said the planter of cadavers, "But have him back by ten o'clock. I lock the gates at ten o'clock and if he isn't back in his grave, I will have to make a note of it in the register."
What a great day we had! Tommy and I hauled my late daddy onto a number 37 bus and headed for the cinema. We bought my late daddy popcorn, sweets and crisps and took our seats. The film was called, "They Walk By Night" It was a very scary film, Tommy and I hid behind the seats, but my late daddy just sat there, stoically and impassive.What a brave little cadaver my dead daddy is. During the intermission, I saw lots of family's with dead cadavers sitting among them. It's good to know that death is no hindrance to a good night out. As Tommy and I came away from the graveyard, I felt-good. I felt a strong bond with my late daddy, I never really got to know him when he was alive, but now we could--bond, find-closure and perhaps, in time, I would feel less guilty about all the times I had pushed him down the stairs.
Later that night, as Tommy and I sat drinking old times and talking about coco I looked at Tommy and said, "Tommy, you are very-passive, where as I am very-ratty, how so?" Tommy took a sip of old times and said, "When I was a young kitten, I was veritable weather vane.My mood changed from minute to minute.""NO!" I yelled. "Oh yes," said Tommy, "but I took myself in hand. I travelled to darkest Gortin to study with the Guru of passivity, Willie John McGrundle." "Not--THE Willie John McGrundle?" I cried. "The very one," said Tommy. "For five long years I studied the art of passivity and today I am proud to say, I am as passive as Mr Passivity, who lives in No 27 Passivate cottage, in Passiveville." "Well I never!" I said, as I crossed my legs and gave birth to a welp of ankles. Tommy and I just sat there, staring into the fire and listening to the crickets chirp, "Oh Boy." Five, or was it six days later? I looked at Tommy and said, "What ever became of Willie John McGrundle, the Gortin Guru of passivity?"
"Dead," said Tommy, blessing himself, "Yes, Willie John McGrundle, the Gortin Guru of passivity is dead. He was caught doing the double by the Dole people," said Tommy, "Flew into an awful rage and died from a massive heart attack, foaming at the mouth like a rabid dog." We sat there in silence, then I said, "we could always go down to Gortin and take Willie John to the cinema."
"Nah," said Tommy "It's too far and besides, I just feel too doggone-passive to bother about him."
Rosie Ryan's letters to Gerry Anderson and other books available at Eason's and below.
jpmcmenamin@gmail.com
Visit Rosie at.. www.rosieryan.blogspot.com
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