How The Ministe of Transport Came Up With the New traffic Regulations In Belfast.

Great show yesterday kid. A great show which provided a rare insight into, "Born in a tea chest" Jordie Tuft. How Janet laughed when Jordie explained how to clip a chicken's wing. Old Jordie, is not only alive and well, but seems ready to carry out some strange, curious act which will grab the headlines and astonish the people of Northern Ireland. Having played with fire, Jordie may well turn his hand to flood, famine, or pestilence. When asked by big, Jim Fitzpatrick how he came up with the new traffic regulations in Belfast, Danny Kennedy, minister of transport, explained, "I simply played with my Dinky toys on the kitchen table until I found a solution. I then upgraded the kitchen table method to cover the whole of Belfast. Soon, a giant sugar bowl will be erected at the bottom of the Donegal road. Motorists must enter the sugar bowl from the left, giving way to on-coming traffic from the right. Large teaspoons on dual carriageways, will greatly reduce speed, leading to much greater safety for Lego men." Jim, was left speechless, so he and Danny, talked about Rinty Monaghan, to fill the remaining minutes of the interview. Cut away, to Donna Traynor, standing knee keep in clabber, talking about the poor potato harvest. I could see Tommy my cat was fuming, ready to explode. Suddenly Tommy kicked a small, stuffed, effigy of Steven Nolan and yelled, "This would never have happened under the rule of benign, dictator Noel Thompson. Noel Thompson would not stand by while poor Donna Traynor, was treated like a serf. There she is, standing in the cold, knee deep in mud, talking about the potato harvest, when everyone, even the dogs in the street, know that most potatoes are imported from warmer climes. It's a scare story! A non story! dreamed up by producers, who never ate a spud in their life. The lotus eaters!" cried Tommy."The prawn sandwich brigade. The veal and sushi merchants. Bring back, rugged, craggy jawed Noel Thompson, before Newsline, declines into a cheap version of, "The One Show." "Hear! Hear!" I cried. "Give that cat a lollipop. AND, my I also add, BBC comedy has hit an all time low. Citizen Khan, Not going out, Life with the Flynns and big, Miranda, are an insult to people who grew up with, Hancock, Steptoe and sons, Monty Python and Harry Worth." "Bring back Charlie Drake," yelled Tommy, "Tommy Cooper, Ken Dodd and hamster eater, Freddie Star!" After venting our fury on a lost scarecrow, Tommy said, "SO, Saturday is the big day. When the signing of the Ulster Covenant with Bic pens is remembered.". "I was there!" I cried. "I was only a cuttie of 28, but I remember Lord Carson saying, "Put your names down here boys. If you can't write, just put down an X. And a wee man at the back, with a fag in his mouth and a flat cap on his head roared, "My Lord, how do you spell, X?" "Tubby Nolan is cashing in," said Tommy. "He plans to have a chain of trestle tables along the way, selling tea, coffee, baps and wee buns. Big Audrey, has been baking for the past five years. The whole enterprise, is called, "Tubby's Tuck In" and all proceeds go towards the purchase of a large, industrial, gastric band from the Boeing company." "Too little, too late!" I cried. "Take Tommy to the shipyard and have his lips welded together. Then, and only then, will we see the inner core of rogue planet, Nolan."

Plebeians to the Core.

Great show yesterday kid, which helped lower the blood pressure of Jim Allister, when he rushed to the toilet, only to find that the DUP and Sinn Fein had put superglue on the seat. As Jim returned to the chamber with the toilet seat under his trousers, Sammy Wilson sniggered and said, "Mr speaker, please ask the honorable member to take the seat out of his trousers, before he takes his seat in the assembly." Mark Durkin, put his head in his hands and screamed, "Is this reality I see before me, or a horrible dream, sponsored by Kraft cheese?" Tommy and I were bored. We walked up and down, hands behind our backs, thumbs a twiddle. Tommy looked out the window and said, "You know you're getting old, when the children seem to be getting younger." I pulled clumps of hair from someone's head and yelled, "Two fingers to this insufferable boredom. I feel like Sherlock Holmes, waiting for a case." I pulled my old fiddle from the wall and went into a frantic bout of playing. My right arm was going like a fiddler's elbow. Tommy, looked at me and said, "It might sound better if you reversed the instrument and had the strings at the front." "Rubbish!" I yelled. "I know what I'm doing. I studied under the great Fiddlero. Now there WAS a fiddle player! He could make the fiddle talk." "What did it say?" said Tommy. "Let me out of the case!" I replied. "Fiddlero, was also a ventriloquist." Tommy scrawled, "Kilroy wasn't here!" on the wall, turned to me and said, "What do you think of chief whip, Andrew Mitchell, and all this talk about effing and blinding and calling the police Plebs?" I jumped into an empty tea chest, picked up a bull horn and yelled out, "In Roman times, The Plebs, were the general body of FREE land owning citizens, as distinguished from slaves. The Plebs, were skillful people and usually quite wealthy!" "So, it wasn't an insult?" said Tommy. "Far from it!" I yelled from the tea chest. "Most people in Northern Ireland, farmers, shop keepers, teachers and policemen would come under the heading of, Plebeians!" "What about Gerry and Sean?" asked Tommy. "Plebeians to the core!" I yelled. "FREE, skilled men, making their living by the Roman art of, oratory." Tommy sucked my thumb and said, "SO, Mrs Coyle was right, when she wanted to call her sprog, Thaddeaus." "Well, not really," I said. "Calling a Plebeian Thaddeaus, could suggest illusions of grandeur and might well get up the nose of the Emperor. NO! Sean, was a good choice. A good, Plebeian name if I ever heard one.". "He would have suffered at school," said Tommy, "had he been christened, Thaddeaus. Can you imagine the names the other children would have called him. Thad, Thaddy, the Roman Emperor." ""I can well imagine," I said, climbing out of the tea chest. "Yet, Mr Coyle, still has a proud, Roman Plebeian name in the form of, Coylus Interuptus." "I never get that joke," said Tommy. "I hear Cardinals, Bishops and men of the cloth, going into gales of laughter, but it just goes over my head." "You'll understand when you're taller," I replied. " Tom!" I yelled to a friend across the street. "Tom! Tom! Tom! Tom! Tom! Tom! Tom!.....TOM!!!

Mark Carruthers and The VIew

Great shows last week kid. Great shows which greatly aided 79 year old Skipper O'Gill, as he set off on his epic voyage to cross the Atlantic in a kitchen sink. Skipper, seemed well prepared for the journey. He had two table tennis bats to row with and a sliced loaf and a hard boiled egg tied round his neck. When asked by a hard nosed hack from the Derry Journal, how he propsed to bail if water got into the sink, Skipper, laughed and said, "I will simply remove the plug and the water will run out. People watched as Skipper went in and out with the edd of the tide. By nightfall, Skipper could be heard under Derry bridge singing sea shanties and yelling, "Water, water, everywhere and not a drop to drink!" Tommy my cat and I leaped to our feet as Mike Nesbitt brought an hysterical crowd to fever pitch at the UUP convention with a defiant yell of, "GO HOME! and prepare for, opposition!" "A ground breaking speech!" cried Tommy. In the distance I heard a far away rumble as the back woods men in Tyrone and Fermanagh, broke cover and stampeded to the centre ground. Left alone in the back woods, Ken Maginnis, ambled off into the darkness like a brown bear, eating wild berries as he went. Tommy watched as I burned ticks from my body with a red hot poker and said, "What is your view of the View?" I looked out the window and said, "I can see clearly now the rain has gone." Tommy gave licence for his face to show exasperation and yelled, "I speak of the NEW, bespoke BBC, show, tailored for Mark "Socks" Carruthers. The new, talk show is called, The View, and features Mark, putting blunt, hard nosed questions to the same old faces we have seen and heard, over the past thirty years." "Oh, I saw that!" I cried. "Mark asked two gentlemen what Mike Nesbitt, needed to do to revive the UUP party. After talking about it for ten minutes both gentlemen said they didn't know AND, Mark said, he didn't know either! Next day, people talked of little else as stage coach horses were changed at great Victoria station." "The View," mused Tommy. "I don't think much of the name. Why not, the View from The Beeb? The View from the bridge, or the View from the rear window?" That's Tommy. Always pushing the envelope. Always thinking outside the box. Always getting behind the back four and passing to the extra man. Hungry drunks parted, like the Red Sea, in the chip shop as Tubby Nolan, burst through roaring, "Make way! Make way! Certified glutton coming through!" "Why Mr Tubby," said the owner. "Hungry again? It's not more that twenty minutes since you left with a barrow load of fish suppers." "Less talk and more frying!" yelled Tubby. "I want a quadruple chip and a pentagon fish. A plethora of mushy peas, two handfuls of salt and half a pint of vinegar." "Certainly Mr Tubby," said the owner. "Anything else?" "Yes!" roared Tubby. "Twenty toothpicks and a strong bucket guaranteed to withstand fierce, projectile vomiting." As Tubby made his way outside, pulling his snack behind him on a little red wagon, the owner said to his assistant., "Marcus, take a spade and a torch and go dig another acre of potatoes. I fear the galloping glutton, will be back!"

Nostalgic for the past!

Great show yesterday kid, which caused great confusion and consternation up at Stormont. Wee Barry McElduff, was just about to put the kettle on for a cup of tay for everyone, except, Jim Alister, when Mr Coyle yelled, "There's nothing about that! You're a liar!" A great feeling of nostalgia swept over the MLAs. Peter Robinson and Martin McGuinness, who were sitting on Alex Attwood's back, sharing a bap, stared into each other's eyes and said, "Remember when we used to carry on like that? The insults, shouting each other down. Each one calling the other a liar. So much time wasted on petty point scoring. Now, we live in harmony, each aware of the other's needs. Each ready to defend the other against brick bats, threats and the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune." Jim Allister, sitting alone in a corner, with a jam sandwich in his hand and a red face on his shoulders roared, "Sean Coyle is my hero! I model myself on Sean Coyle. It was from him, I learned not to trust anything, or anybody." Jim leaped to his feet and screamed, "I follow Coyle, the way a hungry lion follows a missionary. Coyle, taught me to be rude, disruptive, unforgiving, loud, disparaging, annoying, boring, unremitting, bombastic and a right gulpin." Jim, crushed the heel of his jam sandwich under his foot and shrieked, "Here's to Coyle, a man with no insight, hindsight, and very little sight in his bad eye!" In the silence which followed Wee barry McElduff said, "Will I wet the tay boys? The burner is lit and I'm going to keep her lit!" All this happened, so Lord Laird could eat his porridge and make merry in an inn with plenty of room. We stand now and shake the pins and needles out of our legs. I looked at Tommy my cat having a cat nap in my chair and yelled, "Tommy, if you're going to make a habit of breathing, at least do it quietly." Tommy leaped to his feet, still wearing a black armband in memory of Noel Thompson and roared, "Ah, shut your mouth, you old harridan! All you ever do is complain. Go and get a job. Plenty of villages are looking for an idiot." "How dare you!" I cried. "I was at Queen's university." "Not as a student!" shouted Tommy. "When you were six years old, your father, who was a chimney sweep, took you to Queen's university and rammed you up all the chimneys." "It still counts!" I yelled. "I WAS, at Queen's university!" "NIGH! NIGH! NIGH!" screamed Jim Rodgers, creeping out of the cubby hole under the stairs. "Is this any way to behave? You two, should be setting an example to the Sudan, Iran, Syria and the plethora of inter-faces we have here in wee Belfast." "Jim is right," said Tommy, putting the sledge hammer back in the corner. "I'm sorry," I muttered, lowering the battle axe. "That's better," said Jim. "Now come home with me and we'll jump over giant tomatoes until mammy calls us in for milk and cookies." You may have seen it in the sports pages and Steven Watson, put it well when he did a piece to camera. "Once again, ex lord Mayor, Jim Rodger's trailing foot let him down when he tried and failed to win the coveted, world tomato jumping championship, held at the moment by Mexican, Manuel Labour. Speaking after the leap, Jim said, "I'm working on the trailing leg and hope to bring the tomato jumping championship to 'Norn' 'Iron in the near future. If the good Lord's willin' and the creeks don't rise!"

MLAs must demonstrate they are hard workers.

Great show yesterday kid. The combined effort of you, Sean and Janet, helped quell a riot at Saint Jimmy's home for the old and infirm over a shortage of catheters. Old 98 year old Max Miller roared, " I stood toe to toe with Hitler, Albert Speers, Gorbals, Hess, Rommel and Hilda Brune and now, in the Autumn of my life, you expect me to go catheterless! Today, I stand proudly and unsteadily on this commode and cry, "Up with this, I shall not put!  I shall present myself today in the clinic in full dress uniform and demand that a catheter be inserted. If the answer is, NO!  I will stand smartly to attention, salute and pee my trousers, while singing, "It's a long way to Tipperary!" Old Max, was overpowered and taken off on a trolley while still roaring, "Even Hitler, for all his high spirited pranks, jolly japes and school boy foolishness, would not stand idly by and watch an old soldier pee his trousers!" 

Tommy my cat, prospective candidate for the Upper Bann constituency, read Mike Nesbitt's, new pamplet. "Going forward, while looking back" and said, "I see where Mike's coming from, but I've been there and the last bus out, is half past eleven in the morning!"

"The Back Woods!" I cried. "You talk of, the Back Woods in Tyrone and Fermanagh. Strange, weird tales emerge from the Back Woods. Not even the Discovery channel will venture in there. Did you not hear of the giant footsteps left by the Back Woods yeti?" 

"Rubbish!" cried Tommy. "It was merely Ken Maginnis, wearing a big pair of UDR boots."

I gazed at Tommy, as he sat on an upturned bucket, wearing a lovely, tartan, maternity dress, topped off with a snappy, red, Egyptian fez.

"Tommy," I said, "when you are elected by a veritable landslide in the next election, what do you plan to do?"

 "Hit the ground running," said Tommy. "First, I will put out a tender for the erection of a naughty step for Jim Allister. I will then propose, that ALL MLAs turn up for work at six o'clock  each morning, wearing overalls, or boilersuits. MLAS should look like real workers, not pampered pets.

Before MLAs leave the chamber at night, a small boy will smear dirt and grime over their faces. This, will demonstrate to the public and others, that MLAs  are as hardworking as coal miners, or ice cream men."

  "You're a hard task master Tommy cat" I said. "Hard as flint. Make buggers graft for their brass."   Tommy, drew himself up, put a clenched fist up in the air and roared,

"As the first cat elected to Stormont, I shall not pussy foot around!"     

-- 

Assmosis!!

Great show yesterday kid and, Congratulations! on being the number one radio show for single women in the 21-34 age group, who stay in on Saturday nights to wash their Hereford cattle. Getting a cow into a shower is a precise maneuver which requires patience and much frenzied activity from the left lobe of the brain. Tommy my cat wrote,"Repeats", on the giant blackboard, turned to the assembled me and said. "Today class we will discuss television repeats, sometimes called, re-runs. If we go back in time, we find repeats/re-runs, were palmed off on an unsuspecting public as, "Another chance to see!" NOW!" yelled Tommy, "The Illuminati, who manipulate our brains, have come up with a new wheeze. Re-runs/repeats, are now branded as, "Classic Episodes!" So, we now have, Classic, Who wants to be a Millionaire. Classic, Fools and Horses and of course, Classic, Classic cars. Where will it all end?" screamed Tommy. "What will be the next marketing ploy to foist off old rubbish on the general, sergeant and private public?" I put up my leg and cried, "Please Sir, as the first and only Northern Ireland brain donor may I make a suggestion? All the voices in my head and I agree that television moguls will stop at nowt. The next marketing ploy will be anonymous emails and phone calls threatening people to watch, such and such, or bad men will come in the middle of the night to behead your garden gnomes and place cling film over your letterbox." "Get out of this classroom!" yelled Tommy. "And take your Simpson's schoolbag with you!" I stood out in the hall, listening to Tommy speak to an empty room with authority and oratory, bordering on genius. What a cat! And he can also whip up a mean tortiera di cozze. After a light supper of lard balls and chocolate, Tommy wiped his lips, took a delicate sip of Buckfast wine and said, "Did you know that a terrible plague is sweeping the western world?" "PLAGUE!" I screamed, running to the door and yelling, "Bring out your dead!" "This plague is called Assmosis and it's very infectious," said Tommy. "In theory, if you stand close to someone with a big ass, your ass will grow bigger, attracted by the gravity of the bigger ass.". I grabbed my ass in both hands and ran to a mirror. No signs of Assmosis yet! There I stood, with two hips on me as lean as a starved greyhound. "Tell me more Tommy!" I screamed. "I don't want to have an ass as big as the back of a bus, which never turns up on time!" "The only precaution," said Tommy, "is to stay away from people with big asses." I blanched, turned white, shook all over and screamed, "Tubby Nolan, is coming here tomorrow night to collect the Christmas club money! What shall I do? If I stand close to Tubby, my ass will expand like a Goodyear blimp!" "Push the money under the door," said Tommy, "and hold a heavy, expensive, industrial magnet next to your ass, to help fight the gravitational pull of Tubby's massive rear." I ran to the phone to order a magnet--then, I stopped and said, "Hauld on! Hauld on! You're taking a hand at me. I went to Sunday school. I read about Assmosis in the bible. He was the boy who parted the Red Sea, so William of Orange, could cross the Boyne and sign the Ulster Covenant, with a swan's feather. You had me going there!" I said to Tommy. Assmosis, indeed! Assmosis, my ass!

Rory McIlroy! What an ambassador for Ulster!

Great shows last week kid made all the more spectacular when Mr Coyle announced he has been appointed official owl counter, by the Northern Ireland Bird Brain Society. The old nighthawk will walk the darkened roads, clicker in hand, counting everything that goes, too wit-too woo! A heck of a job for a cub, who left school with just a D in basket weaving. Perks include free binoculars and all the mouse pellets he can carry in one hand. Nice! Tommy my cat leaped in the air and cried, "And it's yet another major golf trophy for Northern Ireland's favourite mop top, Rory McIlroy!" I swung my umbrella at a duck egg and cried, "There's no stopping the lad. What a sportsman! What an ambassador for Ulster!" "We must honour him!" yelled Tommy. "We must name some Northern Ireland landmark after Rory McIlroy!" I ruminated, pondered, thunk and cried, "We could rename the Titanic Quarter, the Rory McIlroy Quarter. Just think of all the putts, Rory has sunk." "It's good, but it's not right," said Tommy. "I propose we rename the Giant's Causeway, the Rory McIlroy Causeway." Let me be the first to second that!" I yelled, as I filled two pewter tankards with methelated spirits and white lemonade. "Still hungry?" I asked Steven Nolan, as I watched him pull a mouldy, Mother's Pride loaf out of a wheelie bin. "A little peckish," grunted Tubby, as he pushed the loaf into his mouth with the heel of his hand. "How goes the glittering career?" I asked. "From strength to strength," replied Tubby. "In fact, the BBC are grooming me to be the next Joe Mahon. I will go round Ulster, in a wee Fergie tractor, talking to boring, old codgers, making jam with the Mothers' Legion, fishing, sheep shearing, horse-shoeing and doing all the strange things which Culshies do. The programme will be called, "Roaming with Nolan.". I hope my country mentor and sidekick will be old Jordie Tuft. Unfortunately, money could be a problem." "Is old Jordie asking for a large fee?" I asked. "Oh, no!" said Tubby. "It's just that the BBC, might not be able to afford the exorbitant amount of money that's being quoted for fire insurance." "Here's an old country saying," I said. "What does it mean when a countryman stands with his back to the fire?" "I don't know," said Tubby. "What does it mean when a countryman stands with his back to the fire?" I picked up a drum and said, "It means his trousers are on fire! BOOM-BOOM!

Nothing to Do Now But Wait For A Sign From Paul Clarke or Sarah Travers

Great show yesterday kid. Tommy my cat, came away from the window muttering,

"If rioting were an Olympic sport............"

"Shut your big mouth!" I yelled. "You know the rules. No talk about religion, politics, sport, or Steven Nolan in this house. If you must talk about something, talk about the early morning beauty of Julie Goodyear and Coleen Nolan in Celebrity Big Brother."

"Grey faced bags," snapped Tommy, "with all the allure of soggy chips on a wet Monday morning!"

"Why do they do it?" I cried. "Why do they debase themselves by living in a goldfish bowl for the titillation of the great unwashed?"

"Money!" said Tommy. "For some, it is a last throw of the dice. Oh how sad, to see the once chipper, pink-faced, cherub, Julian Clary, turn before our eyes into Rigsby from Rising Damp. He shuffles round the house in ill fitting cardigan, bedroom slippers, dead behind the eyes, muttering, "I miss my wee dog, I wonder if she misses me?"

"Any woman," I roared, "who believes in anti ageing cream, should take a good look at the grey, putty face of Julie Goodyear! A zombie!" I yelled. "It will take more, I say, it will take more than leopard skin to bring the sparkle back to old Bet Lynch!".

"Leave them!" said Tommy. "They are irrelevant." 

Tommy blushed and said, "I must confess to having a crush on blonde, beauty, Sarah Travers."

"You could do worse," I replied. "Sarah is a fine and fair maiden. Lovely hair and complexion and I hear she whips up a mean steak and kidney pie." 

Tommy, looked at me, giggled and said, "Have you still got a "Thing" for Paul Clarke?"

I blushed to the roots of my hair extensions, fluttered my hands, knocked my knees together and replied, "The greyer that little newshound gets, the more I love him. Oh, how I would love to kiss his breaking news mouth and press him close to my cameo brooch. Hold him, enfold him, never let him go, until the sun goes out and the stars fall from the heavens like skin flakes from Julie Goodyear's face."

"How romantic AND poetic!" said Tommy. "You must have got it bad."

 "I have got it bad!" I yelled. "I have never had it badder. Under this olive-green body warmer, six ganseys and four simmets, beats a heart.

A heart, fair bursting with love, affection and cholesterol for little Paulie Clarke. OH, PAUL!" I screamed, "OH, PAUL! Give me a sign! If you really love me, comb your hair over your eyes when you present, "UTV Live Extra" tonight, or wear a Hitler moustache and I will know that you love me too!"

"OH, Sarah Travers!" roared Tommy. "Give ME a sign! Dye your hair ginger, when you read the news tonight, or wear a black eyepatch over your right eye!" 

Nothing to do now but wait. Will one of us, perhaps both of us, get our prayers answered by a ginger haired Sarah Travers and a Hitler moustached, Paul Clarke.  Stranger things have happened!