Thursday 28 October 2010

Coping With Austerity

Great show yesterday kid. A great show which ticked all the right boxes, touched all the bases and tickled the fancy of the great unwashed man who sits, legs akimbo on the abandoned mattress on the Ballymena round-a-bout.
Tommy my cat, with a look of austerity on his thin,sensitive, feline face, wiped his brow and said,
"I have emptied all the oil out of the oil tank and used the tank to make 750 gallons of home made gruel. That should be enough to see you and me through the next four years of poverty and penuary."
"Have you piped the gruel into the house?" I asked.
"Yes!" replied Tommy. "When you turn on the cold tap you get gruel and when you turn on the hot tap you get cold water."
"Well done good and faithful feline," I said. "Now go round the house and blast all the light bulbs with this double-barrelled shotgun. It will greatly cut down on the money we send to NIE."
"I hate loathe and despise NIE!" screamed Tommy. "They add 5% VAT to the bill. Why should I send my hard earned money to the Vatican?"
"Shut up Tommy!" I yelled. "It's money well spent. If there was no Pope, who would we kick on the 12th of July?"
"The Reverend Willie McCrea," suggested Tommy.
I grabbed a Zulu spear and chased him round and round the garden like a teddy bear.
"Ah, it's BBC education correspondent little Maggie Taggart," I said.
"Is it true Maggie, that our school children are-grand?"
"Far from it," said Maggie. "They can't spell, do sums or speak English like what it should be spoken. Our young girls are aspiring Millies and our young boys can't even pull their trousers up over their underpants."
"By the beard of Socrates," I yelled, "something must be done! Someone should get on the blower to Jamie Oliver or Doctor Poo, Gillian McKeith."
"Worry not," said little Maggie. "Paul Gascoigne has promised to come over here and teach the kids English if he gets community service."
"Crisis averted!" I cried. "Saved by the Bell's whiskey. By the time Gaza is finished,the children will be talking English like what it has never been talked before."
Maggie and I linked arms and sang,
"The fog on the Tyne is mine, all mine.
The fog on the Tyne is mine."
I gave Maggie an A plus. She gave me a riser and we parted on the best of terms.
Suddenly, to my surprise and horror,little Maggie fell into an open manhole.
I ran frantically towards it yelling
"MAGGIE! MAGGIE! MAGGIE! OUT! OUT! OUT!"

Tuesday 26 October 2010

Cats, Cuts and Queen.

Great shows last week kid. Great shows which brought meaning and clarity to the down-trodden, blighted lives of Paul Gascoigne, Sir Alan Sugar and our own royal correspondent Frank Mitchell.
Did you see Frank and the Queen on UTV? Wee Frank hauled and pushed her Majesty around like a bag of spuds. How proud the Queen's family must be to see her in a photograph with Frank Mitchell. In her royal diary the Queen described Frank as humorless, erratic,ruthless, tidy and very, very clean.
Tommy my cat found out the hard way that a cat can not look at a Queen. When a lady in waiting, big Bertha, hit Tommy a thump up the gub with her handbag. Tommy is now plotting the downfall of the house of Windsor. Keep it under your hat, but Tommy had a hand in the fall of the house of Usher. It was Tommy who put the Edgar Allen under Vincent Price's bed.
Tommy hit me over the head with a hammer like he does every morning to test my reflexes and said,
"What a bummer to see arts and culture cut by 15%"
"Shocking!" I yelled. "This Christmas poor May McFeteridge had to slash......."
"I wonder how she does that?" said Tommy.
"Probably standing up, or sitting down according to what moods she's in," I replied thoughtfully. This year, because of the cuts, poor May's Pantomime is called, "Snow White and the three dwarfs. And not only that, Seamus Heaney has only one snug pen to hold twixt finger and thumb!"
"When great civilizations fall," said Tommy, "the first thing to go is arts and culture, followed by meals on wheels and lolly-pop men. I saw the writing on the wall when jovial George Jones and The hole in the Wall Gang were axed. The next step," screamed Tommy,"is debauchery! The people of Ulster will lie around the filthy, dirty streets in Hogarthian poses, drunk as newts and twice as vicious.
Morality will go to the wall and "How's your father, is your mother still working?" will emerge from the sinister shadows and stalk the land like a foul, evil pestilence."
"Great balls of DUPers!" I cried. "Does this mean.......?"
"YES!" cried Tommy. "Ulster will never say, NO again!"
I gave a hop, skip and jump like the Sion Mill's kangaroo and ran out to buy a copy of Debauchery for beginners."

Saturday 23 October 2010

Stray cats and greeedy footballers.

Great show yesterday kid. A great show which promised much and delivered much-oh pleasure and feelings of great joy. Mr Coyle's fable about being attacked by a feral pussy in an industrial estate had Tommy, my cat's, ire metre in the red zone.
After Mr Coyle had cut a short story long Tommy yelled,
"J'accuse Mr Coyle of knowingly and willingly slandering the good name of pussies everywhere. That so called story was a fabrication built with untruths, and fibs and laid on a foundation of LIES! Let's examine the facts. An industrial estate late at night. A lonely pussy and Mr Coyle. That poor cat had been abandoned, strayed, given the great heave-oh by its cruel, nasty owners. When that happens to a feline, our instinct is to try and curry favour from the first human we meet,hoping and praying, in our own little pussy way,to be taken home and adopted. And how did Herr Coyle react? Mr Coyle reverted to type. He threw stones at the poor little pussy,as if it were a soldier in the Green Howards. Oh cruel, blighted,solitary man. You don't deserve a little pussy purring on your pillow and gazing with wide,slitted,yellow eyes at your huge, parasitic eye-brow. WRETCH!" screamed Tommy. "May all your golf balls bounce off trees and come back and hit you right up the kisser. May your toes curl into talons and your golfing gansies unravel into mouldy, mounds of wool and thread. Apart from that, mind how you go and have a nice day."
"Never mind all that!" I yelled. "Have you seen the headline in the paper?
SPUD MAY MOVE TO SPAIN! Speaking from his home in Chester, Spudman, and granny-groper Wayne Rooney said,
"Yeh, da thing is-like,I ain't getting no respect-like. I is thinking of taking my talents to Spain or if not Spain-like, some club in Europe-like. I ain't in football for da money-like. I is da man and I deserve respect-like."
"You whinging, whining, King Edward-faced tube!" yelled Tommy. "Go to Real Madrid and see how you get on. In the name of Peter Doherty and the heavy leather ball, modern day footballers get right up my hooter. Sir Alex Ferguson can always call on Jackie Fullerton and after the blunder Van Der-Sar made at the weekend, Tubby Nolan is ready to wrestle on the green jersey and step into goal."
"What a line-up!" I cried. "And its Giggs to Fullerton. Fullerton stops to tell a long story about growing up in Ballymena. Fullerton is robbed by an old man with a zimmer frame. The ball trundles slowly towards the goal and through the fat,flabby, Giant of Rhodes, legs of United keeper Tubby Nolan."
"GOOOOOOOOOOOAL!" yelled Tommy.
Tommy looked at me and said,
"No time for Jim Rodgers this week?"
"I have neither the time nor the inclination!" I yelled. "Let sleeping, leaping Lord Mayors lie."

Thursday 21 October 2010

Is He Having A Laugh?

Great shows last week kid. Great, great shows which made one tingle all over with strange, weird feelings of apathy. After Friday's great show Queen Elizabeth turned to loving, Greek hubby Phillip and said,
"I know him you know. I know Gerry Anderson. We had him here as a guest when you finally assembled the Ikea flat-pack Bloody Mary commode. What a jolly nice person he was. He had the impunity to tell me that Jordie Tuft was one of my subjects. I always thought, hoped and prayed that old Jordie fell under the bailiwick of Biffo Cowan."
"Gerry eh?" grunted the prince. "Sounds like a Hun to me, must be from your side of the family."
"Oh shut up Stavros!" shrieked the queen,"and stop tempting the corgies with your horrid, greasy kebab. Put it away! Put it away! Footman, make Stavros put his horrid Greek kebab away."
And so we leave Buckingham palace with all its history and junk-cluttered back yard and get back on the coach.
I couldn't believe it when I heard it on the news. Surely Noel Thompson was,'aving a laugh.
"He's 'aving a laugh!" I yelled.
THEN! a grim faced Paul Clarke broke the same story. I glared at Tommy my cat who was making egg cartons from expensive, antique music boxes as instructed by Blue Peter and yelled,
"Take away the head of Alfredo Garcia and bring me the head, body and nigh, nigh, NIGH of Jim Rodgers!"
I just had time to flash before Jim Rodgers stood before me.
"WELL," I said, "this is a right howdy do. This is a right kettle of fish. This is a right pickle and no mistake. What were you thinking of?" I yelled. "Who gave you carte blanche to leap over a woman dressed as a red, furry tomato?"
"NIGH! NIGH! NIGH!" screamed Jim. "As I explained to the judge it was just a bit of fun. All my life I have wanted to leap over a woman dressed as a red, furry tomato. When I happened to come across one, I screamed, "GERONIMO!" and sprinted towards her. Legs akimbo I tried to clear her, but I gave the poor woman a dunt with my knee."
"Your knee my ass!" I yelled. "I saw the photographs. You hit that poor, red, furry tomato woman a dunt on the head with your fork."
"KNEE!" screamed Jim.
"FORK!" I yelled.
"And now the tax-payers of Ulster have to stump out 28 grand in compensation because of your wayward fork."
"KNEE!" screamed Jim.
"FORK!" I yelled.
Tommy laid Jim down on a dirty, filthy, yellow, leather couch and said,
"Tell me Jim, when was the first time you felt an over-whelming compulsion to jump over a woman dressed as a red,furry tomato?"
"It's all coming back!" screamed Jim. "I remember the midwife wore a red, furry gansy and as the doctor slapped my wee Unionist arse, I felt a wild desire to scream, "BUMMER!" and leap over the midwife."
"Take up your head and walk!" cried Tommy. "Your faith has made you whole."
As Jim raced down the street screaming, "Nigh, Nigh, NIGH!" Tommy wrote on the wall with HP sauce,
"Legs akimbo, there goes Jimbo."
"FORK!" I yelled after Jim.
"KNEE!" screamed Jim as he leapt a red letterbox and galloped down the Donegall road looking for women dressed as red, furry tomatoes to leap over!

Tuesday 19 October 2010

A wolf in sheep's clothing

Great show yesterday kid. The highlight of the show was Mr Coyle yelling,
"I don't know what to drink with pizza."
Tommy my cat threw The Chilean Chronicle from him and yelled,
"Let him drink cake!"
I cooled Tommy down by running him in a circle while giving him risers from a pair of pristine, Northern Ireland, football boots.
GOOOOOOOOOOAL!" I yelled, while Tommy whistled frantically for full time.
After applying a liberal application of E45 cream to Tommy's rear the feline spoke thus,
"I have been keeping a word check on Gerry's great show. The results are in and are are truly staggering. In today's great show Gerry spoke for 49% of the time and Mr Coyle spoke for 50% of the time. Which means in essence, Mr Coyle owns a controlling interest in the Gerry show."
"Great balls of high octane fuel!" I cried. "How did this tarra situation come about? Mr Coyle was only taken on by Radio Foyle as tea-boy and gopher at the bequest of Bishop Daly. He must be up to his ears in insider trading."
"That is the feeling in the city," said Tommy. "Mr Coyle has been buying short and selling long, while also trading on the margins."
"Gadzooks!" I cried. "Mr Coyle will probably pick up a three or four pound bonus this Christmas."
"He's a fat cat!" yelled Tommy. "Mr Coyle is one fat pussy."
"Hold the weddin' and change the beddin'" I cried. "You said Gerry spoke 49% of the time and Mr Coyle spoke 50% of the time, what happened to the other 1%?"
"Oh that was Janet," said Tommy. "You may remember at one point Janet screamed,
"HI! Get off me Batman, you're messing up my hair!"
"By jingo!" I cried. "That explains why Emma moved lock, stock and two smoking barrels upstairs."
"SEXUAL HARASSMENT!" screamed Tommy. "Sexual harassment from a man who wears a Matt Talbot badge on his lapel."
"A wolf in sheep's clothing!" I cried. "A Rottweiler posing as a shit-sue."
"To the stocks with him!" shrieked Tommy. "To the stocks with giggling, gigolo, Thaddeaus Coyle!"

Wednesday 13 October 2010

Tubby no more.

Great show yesterday kid. A great show, which for an hour and a half took everyone's mind off the burning issue of the day.
Could Tubby Nolan weigh in at 17 stone on Thursday and be crowned, "The slimmest fat man" in Ulster.
Candles are being lit, vigils held, bets placed and fireworks hoarded for the great night.
President Clinton has been invited. Seamus Heaney has composed a new poem called,
"Thin as a bogland snipe" and the Undertones, with dancing dervish Micky Bradly on bass guitar, will play all their back catalogue,which should take six or seven minutes. Old Jordie will dance a jig and give a talk on the destructive effect on the body from drinking too much cooking sherry. The evening will end with Tubby Nolan in a thong dancing and bopping to,
"Shake-a-dat-ass. Shake-a-dat ass."
Tommy stood there in his new Winter Ugg boots and said,
"Well, well, well. So old hang 'em and flog 'em was caught in drag at the docks running away from a little sailor?"
"He was!" I cried. "The eyebrow was caught red stilettoed. There go his free bus runs to Knock and the Christmas card from the Pope and the concave of Cardinals."
"Hoist by his own petard," said Tommy. "Not so much, "Our man at the Vatican" as "Our woman at the docks."
"Oh Tommy", I giggled,"you are so funny. You really should hang around with Tim McGarry and William Caulfield."
"Just for the record," said Tommy,"what would, "MAGGIE MAY" have been charged with if picked up by the fuzz?"
"HIGH TREASON!" I screamed. "And trying to sell a member of her Majesty's forces a poke in a wig."
"Devil's Island is too good for him!" yelled Tommy."Send him to Ballymena for a month. That should settle any hash that is still bubbling and gurgling in his little, "Fanny by gaslight" tummy."
"I've said it before and I'll say it again!" I cried. "Madame X was the ruination of Mr Coyle....."
"If only he had stuck with Loony-Tunes," said Tommy,"and not moved onto the hard stuff."
"Loony-Tunes is a gate-way film," I said,as I slipped a well worn DVD of, "Tubby Nolan, wild and uncensored" into the DVD player.
I sat there leering and drooling with my thumb on the pause button.

Tuesday 12 October 2010

DOCTOR OR COMEDIAN

Great shows last week kid. Great shows which gave hope to the trapped Chilean miners and doddering 97 year old Matlock McGrinder who is going into hospital to have his vasectomy reversed. When asked why he was going to such extreme lengths at his age
old Matlock leered, drooled and gasped,
"I want to stand beside a NO SMOKING sign in an hospital waiting room,light up a big cigar and yell,
"WHO'S THE DADDY? WHO'S THE DADDY NOW THEN?"
Old Matlock was dragged away for a psychiatric report and a good wash with a scrubbing brush and vast quantities of Lifebuoy soap.
Tommy my cat crawled out of the cutlery drawer. He had been pretending to be a fork with a bent prong. Tommy hitched up his little lavender trousers and said,
"I see Harry Hill is back on TV."
"So what?" I yelled."So what? My world does not revolve around Harry Hill and his bald-headed shenanigans."
"Harry Hill is a qualified doctor," said Tommy."As is Jonathan Miller of Beyond The Fringe fame and Graham Gardner from the rib-tickling trio the Goodies."
WHY?" yelled Tommy,adapting the stance of Lloyd George, "WHY would three qualified doctors turn their backs on the most noble of callings to become-comedians? And another thing," yelled Tommy,"why has no comedian ever become a-DOCTOR?"
"By the Fruit of the loom!" I cried,"you've hit upon a reet conundrum there lad.
It's all one way traffic. Doctor to comedian, but no comedian to doctor. Eeh, it's a reet puzzle lad and no mistake."
"Perhaps 'tis best that way," said Tommy. "Would you like to be lying helpless in a hospital bed and see doctor May McFetridge approach your nether region with a shaving brush and a cut-throat razor?"
Suddenly Jim Rodgers burst in screaming,
"Nigh, Nigh, NIGH! there will be no double jobbing, not on my watch.
ONE MAN, ONE JOB!" screamed Jim.
"ONE WOMAN, NO JOB and that goes double for Caitriona Ruane. We are not GRAND." screamed Jim. "We are a long way from GRAND. We have never been less GRAND. We are NOT GRAND! GRAND, we are NOT!"
So, what does that make Jim Rodgers? Doctor fix-it, or comedian?
Answers on a postcard to, Frank Mitchell, The Cardboard box, outside the gates of UTV.

Tuesday 5 October 2010

Duping the DUP

Great shows last week kid. Great shows which were used to induce the sacred cows of India into a feeling of peace and tranquility.
"Smashing! Brilliant! Amazing!" enthused sacred cow herdsman, Bosco Patrick Patel.
Suddenly Tommy my cat threw down, Brain surgery for dummies, grabbed me by the throat and screamed into my face,
"What unnatural, indecipherable, undetectable power does Martin "Svengali" McGuinness have over the DUP?"
I fired Hudson our old butler and faithful family retainer out of a cannon I bought on eBay and said,
"Explain yourself feline. I know not of what you speak."
"I speak of seditious seducement," said Tommy. "I speak of seduction on a grand and epic scale. First, "Svengali" McGuinness uses his charm to turn the "Big Man" Ian Paisley into a chuckle brother, and now he has first Minister Peter Robinson tittering like a love sick school girl. What strange, terrible, alien power has McGuinness got? Why, if the man so desired, he could charm the birds from the veritable trees."
I threw a herring at Jimmy Spratt and replied,
"There are two cities in the British Isles where everyone thinks they are a comedian and those two cities are, Liverpool and Stroke City."
"AH-HAA!" yelled Tommy,as he lined the mantlepiece with a regiment of Child of Prague statues.
"So, Martin McGuinness is using a charm offensive on the DUP?"
"Give that cat a cigar," I cried. "Martin McGuinness is using his quick, inimitable Derry wit to lure the DUP into his web. He keeps the DUP'ers giggling and tittering with stories about the little sailor, Gerry Anderson's shed and Sean Coyle's strange, weird penchant for blind bats."
"Machiavellian", whispered Tommy. "The Shinner's plan is Machiavellian in its simplicity. A ballot box in one hand and a tickling stick in the other."
"Let's go and build a gable wall and write that on it!" I yelled.
"Good idea," cried Tommy."It will enlighten the people and give a much needed boost to the building industry."
That's where Brian Cowan got it wrong. He didn't have the capability to think laterally!
"Another drink Brian?"
"I don't mind if I do, but no ice this time. Things are getting cold enough around here!"
It's all over Brian.Time to get your coat!

Friday 1 October 2010

Pretending to be Presenters

Great shows last week kid. Great shows powered by the best, illegal, red diesel you can buy in Donegall.
Tommy my cat put his prized Malachi Cush smile back into its velvet lined box and said,
"Things are so bad in Stroke City, people have been reduced to stealing manhole covers."
"Big YIKES!" I yelled. "But what do the little cloth-cappers use the manhole covers for, fuel?"
"Big coins for slot machines and telephone boxes," said Tommy. "One old couple who run a Ma' and Pa' store on Phil Coulter street,opened up the coin box on the pay phone and were flattened by five heavy manhole covers."
"What are the police doing?" I yelled. "What are Matt Baggott's lassies and lads doing about this horrible and dastardly crime?"
"Everything they can," said Tommy. "Every time the police come upon an open manhole, they look into it."
"BOOM-BOOM!" said the Russian Mig fighter plane flying overhead.
"Pull me by my feet," said Tommy. "Let's pretend I'm Gaza and you're taking me home."
"I have a better idea," I cried."Lock me in a small, steel cell with a po and I'll pretend to be Lyndsay Lohan."
But after much discussion, we both decided to sit much too close to each other on the sofa muttering, "Rhubarb, Rhubarb, Rhubarb," as we pretended to host the "One Show." But Tommy ruined the game by running upstairs to change into a very tight skirt and blond wig. Then the perverted,little pussy showed far too much leg as he pretended to be Emily Maitland presenting Newsnight.
I slipped on a wrinkled, rubber Jeremy Paxman mask and yelled,
"I think we've had enough of that, don't you?" And I gave Tommy a fierce riser right up the pencil skirt.
After a lunch of tuna, caught and killed with tender love and affection,Tommy and I set out to find Tubby Nolan. We found the oval one at a soup kitchen for down and outs.
"Just topping up," slabbered Tubby,as he got stuck into a big bowl of ferret and lentil soup.
"Tubby!" Yelled Tommy. "Could you explain why you earn more than Dafydd Cameroon the Prime Minister?"
Tubby whipped out a portable soapbox, mounted it and roared,
"Judge me not by my station, personality or appearance! Judge me rather by my deeds.
The Prime Minister has just one thing to do and that is get a smile out of Jim Allister. Has he done that? NO! Jim Allister is still as glum as a bag of wet chooks. Now look what I have accomplished. Only last week I got a new wheelie-bin for an old biddy so she could throw her husband's ashes into it and use the urn as a receptacle for small change. The week before I got a white stick for an old codger with failing eyesight so he could find his wife in the dark. So "Amen, Amen I say onto to you. Who is more worthy to enter McDonalds?"
Tommy and I fell to our knees and answered,
"Verily you are Saint Tubby, the patron saint of slabberers and bucket bakes.
Here end'th the first lesson.
Now stand and sing,
"Why was he born so beautiful,why was he born at all?"