SMILE AND LET IT LIE.

Great Christmas shows Kid. Great shows which put a smile on everyone's face, even Michael McGimpsey!

On Christmas morning Michael McGimpsey looked at himself in the cobwebbed mirror and cried, "I'm, smiling! I'm smiling for the first time in my life and it's all down to genial Gerry Anderson and his great Christmas shows."

A smiling Michael McGimpsey ran on slippered feet, to his small latticed bedroom window, threw the window open wide and yelled to the crowd below, "LOOK! Look at me everyone, I'm-smiling!"

Most ran away in terror, but a few remained to take photographs of the most unusual Christmas miracle.

A still smiling Michael McGimpsey spied a young boy and cried, "I say there young shaver," (Michael had seen the lad working in the barber's shop.) "is that big turkey still in the butcher's shop window?" smiled Michael.

The young lad put his hood down so he could hear better and roared, "Yes it is Guv. And a bigger blinking turkey, I ain't ever seen in my blinking life."

"What a smart boy," giggled Michael.

"What a smart, intelligent lad. Here is a £50 note of the realm," smiled Michael. "Run to the butcher's and buy that big turkey. Then invite all your little hoodie friends to join me for a merry Christmas dinner."

"Cor thank you Guv," said the minute hoodie.

"People say Michael McGimpsey is a rum cove. But you is all right in my book mate. I like you Mike."

"What a smart intelligent boy that is," giggled Michael McGimspsey, as he threw off his night cap and danced around his bedroom. But even smiling has its handicaps. Later in the week, a smiling Michael McGimpsey was turned away by Ryanair. And all because his smiling, beaming face did not reflect the photograph on his passport.

BOO Ryanair. Oh yes I will. He's behind you!

Tommy my cat sidled up to me with a horrible grin on his feline face, nudged me in the ribs, winked and said, "What do you think then? What do you think of all the Lady Ga-Ga malarky then? Come on. What do you think of it then?"

"Be off, you unfeeling feline!" I yelled. "It is Christmas, a time of good will. I refuse to speculate on the one known as Lady Ga-Ga."

"Message received and understood," leered the remorseless feline. "But what do you think eh? At the end of the day like, when all's said and done, what do you think of Lady Ga-Ga? Come on. Don't sit on the fence. Stop messing about. Say what you see. What do you think of Lady Ga-Ga? Is she a.......?"

"STOP!" I yelled. "I don't want to hear anymore about Lady Ga-Ga!"

"Who or whom rattled your cage then?" said Tommy. "I was only going to say, is Lady Ga-Ga a good singer?"

I looked down at Tommy's little pale, whiskered, innocent feline face and replied softly, "Yes Tommy, I think Lady Ga-Ga is a very good singer."

Little Tommy picked up the Financial Times, sat down on his favourite armchair, crossed one skinny leg over the other, put on his reading glasses and said, "Mind you, she does look a bit like the bloke who works in Tesco's."

"You couldn't let it lie!" I screamed. "You just couldn't let it lie. GET OUT!" I roared. "GET OUT and never darken the door of this hovel until you learn how to--let it lie!"

That's what I have to put up with Kid. All you have to put up with is Sean Thaddeaus Coyle. Want to swap?

What a Character!

What a great show to start the week Kid, a show full of festive Christmas cheer and a nod and a wink towards Hanukkah.

"Ah Hanukkah," said Tommy my cat,

"when the nine candles on the Menorah shine out like-like, nine candles on a Menorah."

"The festival of light!" I yelled.

"Christmas lights, Menorah lights, the Northern Lights, Bud lite. Everything is-light."

"LET THERE BE LIGHT!" screamed Tommy. "Did you know," said Tommy, "that today is the shortest day of the year? Tomorrow the sun will head back towards earth, with the horn blaring and the lights flashing."

I became all light headed and yelled, "Let's sow wild flowers and slap on some sun cream."

"Where's my sun bonnet and little tangerine shorts?" cried Tommy.

We were brought back to the cold, harsh reality of Winter, when two hard snowballs came flying through the window and hit Tommy and me up our respective cake holes.

I think the snowball thrower was Jim Rodgers, though I have no proof. But as the ugly, deformed man in the bell tower of Notre Dame cathedral said when he looked over his shoulder, "I have a good hunch."

Tommy nudged me, winked at me and said, "I think we have one."

"Will you stop talking like Sean Thaddeaus Coyle!" I yelled. "You think we have one-what?"

"A character," said Tommy, tapping his nose slyly and winking in a very repulsive manner.

"And who, or whom is the character?" I said.

"The shaving man," said Tommy, leering most hideously and winking and nodding like a mad thing.

"Eeh by gum Thomas," I yelled, "You're right. Why would a man, well-on in years, take the trouble to phone Gerry and talk about-shaving?"

"He's a character," giggled Tommy. "I feel we have a new character, The shaving man."

"Not so fast my fine, feathered friend," I cried. "The shaving man is going for a shave with a cut throat razor. Should the shaving man suffer from the shakes or hiccups, it could be goodnight Vienna for the shaving man."

"What the shaving man must do at all costs," said Tommy, "is keep his head."

"Not so easy," I said, "when all around you are losing theirs."

"Kipling?" said Tommy.

"No thank you," I said, "I'll just have a rich tea please."

Tommy and I had tea in the tea room, which is adjacent to the tee-hee room where we go to laugh and quite near the sitting room, where we stand looking out of the window.

We also have a box room. We go in there in times of stress, put on boxing gloves and batter the face of each other. We also have a room upstairs, which we brought down stairs and turned into a spare room. If Tommy or I pick up a bit of spare round the docks we bring them there. My bedroom window is up on the roof to catch the early morning sunlight. Our front porch is round the back and our back porch is round the front. A man is coming round next week to tile my back passage.

We have removed all the doors and replaced them with big gaping holes. This allows the wildebeest to run through our house during the annual migration from Ballymena to Poleglass. As the magnificent beasts thunder by the sofa, Tommy and I sit on the mantelpiece singing.

"BORN FREE.".

Did you ever find out what wee ghostie was haunting bonny wee Lord Laird's kilt?

It could well be yon wee caber ghost from Fife. AYE!--Fife.

Boxing manoeuvres

Great shows last week Kid, but now you have to do it all over again. You have to climb into the ring, slip in a gum shield and come out fighting.

When you return to your stool for a rest during the eleven o'clock news, Mr Coyle will wipe your face with a towel, give you a drink of water and pull out the waist band of your shorts. This manoeuvre in sporting circles is known as the boxer's grope.

And there is no better exponent of the boxers grope that Mr Coyle.

Jordie Tuft had an unfortunate experience with the boxer's grope when bare knuckle fighting in Kilburn. Jordie's second, Pug O'Toole, gave old Jordie such a violent boxer's grope, when Jordie got up for the fifth round, his boxing drawers fell round his ankles and he walked into a haymaker from Crazy Julian Grayson. Old Jordie lay on his back, legs akimbo, muttering about Jeyes Fluid. The referee was so transfixed he forgot to count. Many people got a good eyeful before the towel was thrown into the ring. Many women and indeed a few men were treated by St. John ambulance men for severe traumatic shock.

Mad Frankie Frasier told me that story in the Blind Beggar pub. I looked down at him and said,

"Mad Frankie are you really mad?"

He looked up at me with his little, cold, shark eyes and replied softly, "I'm not mad, but I am a little miffed at the decline in moral standards and the startling increase in, How's your father? Is your mother still working?"
Before I left that night, Frankie kindly pulled out two of my teeth, and I didn't even have to ask him! Apparently Mad Frankie had seen signs of decay in my two front teeth and whipped out his pliers before you could say Broadmoor.

A diamond, that's what mad Frankie Frasier is, a diamond geezer.

But this looking back through Rosie Ryan tinted glasses, won't get the turkey stuffed.

"Ram in more," yelled a loud, uncouth voice.

"Ram in more."

I peeped into the butcher's shop and there stood Tubby Nolan overseeing the stuffing of a large nude ostrich.

"Ram in more stuffing," roared Tubby.

"I want that baby stuffed to the gunnel with stuffing!"

"But Mr Tubby," said the sweating, red faced butcher, "I have stuffed 65 pounds of stuffing into that ostrich!"

"Oh, all right," growled Tubby. "Sew her up and throw her on the wheel barrow I brought with me."

As Tubby wheeled the large, stuffed ostrich out of the butcher's, I grabbed him by the jowls and screeched, "Luvely-Jubely Tubby, tell me, oh plump one, when do you have your dinner on Christmas day?"

"Between the hours of nine and eleven," roared giant turf stacks.

"How lovely," I said. "You go to church in the morning, have a light lunch and then sit down to your dinner at night, between the hours of nine and eleven. How civilized."

"Are you mad?" yelled Tubby, "On Christmas Day I eat from nine in the morning until eleven o'clock at night."

As he pushed the ostrich in the wheel barrow down the street, wearing his old Patrick Moore suit, I looked at a small, lazy eyed dwarf from Derrylin and said,

"Now there goes something that would make Charles Darwin scratch his head."

The Derrylin dwarf concurred and we retired to a local hostelry to get as pissed as two Dungannon newts.

Kid, you have probably seen some pissed newts in your time, but until you see a pissed Dungannon newt, you ain't seen nothing yet.

PS. Is Coylers wearing his Santa boxing shorts???

Have one of the girls give him a boxer's grope!.

Bring Back The Chuckle Brothers.

Great come back show Kid, after strutting your stuff on the cat walks of Paris. I hear you were modelling the Spring collection for fashion designer, Willie John McClabber from Cullybaccy.

As your melodic, dulcet tones were carried by the breeze, like veritable thistledown all over Norn Iron, people lifted their weary heads and stood up proud, like the tall poppy. Two days of cold. Two days of-Coyle!

"Gott in Himmel!" screamed Edwin Poots. "Is this all there-IS?"

Poots was apprehended on his way to a high bridge, with his pockets full of pre-decimal pennies. And now, he is dancing in the street, laughing, telling jokes and twisting small dogs into the shape of balloons. As the old song says,

"What a difference a day makes!"

"GERRY'S BACK!" shrieked Tommy my cat, as he did a somersault in the middle of the room, arrayed in white, lace blouse, charcoal grey pencil skirt, Doc Martin stillettos and dark brown, support stockings. He banged a wooden spoon against a brass gong and yelled, "Bring on the dancing girls!"

In staggered three old dears from an old folks' home. Oh, it was pathetic to see them try and kick up their old wrinkled legs.

"We are the Follies Bergerac," croaked one, as she made an ineffectual attempt to flash her knickers.

It was- pathetic and hideously repulsive.

To think that someone's dear old mammy would be reduced to-THAT! Thank Goodness my late mammy got a job in Duffy's circus before she popped her clogs. I picked up the bisum and swept the three old crones out into the street.

Suddenly, like the tide, Tommy's mood changed. He put a crash helmet on me and ran at the wall with his head. When he got up he roared, yelled, shrieked and uttered the most high pitched falsetto screams I have ever heard.

"Tommy!" I cried. "Tommy, what ails thee lad?"

"DID YOU SEE THEM?" screamed Tommy.

"Did you see Martin McGuinness and Peter Robinson stand and shake their heads behind each others back?"

"I did," I said, "as did most people in Northern Ireland. But no ones cares. We are all sick and tired of the little games."

Tommy eased himself down on a pile of twenty pound notes from the Northern bank and softly said, "Remember the Chuckle Brothers? That was a golden time. Everything was turned into one big joke. Teeth," said Tommy. "all you saw were teeth, when Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness were touring the province to wild acclaim as The Chuckle Brothers. Where did it all go wrong?" sighed Tommy. "Why is everything so grim? No more laughing. No more chuckling. Nothing now but grumpy drawers.

I don't like grumpy drawers!" shrieked Tommy. "I want the Chuckle Brothers and I want them-NIGH!"

Then the poor feline slumped down into a blubbering heap.

I went to the window and stared out.

People were shopping, children playing, dogs doing what dogs do best. I crossed my legs across my chest and softly muttered,

"Christmas? Bah. Humbug!"

Galvanized into action, I gave a skip like old mother Reilly, yelled, "GERONIMO!" and ran at the wall with my head.

Which is why I am writing this letter in intensive care.

Happy-ah-ah-HAPPY LANDINGS.

Maybe it will all turn out nice--soon.

A Saga Of Snipes And suckling pigs

Great show yesterday Kid. People are booking street corners, so they can stand and talk about the great show. In the short time since the great show was broadcast three books, an opera and a ballet have been written about it.

Seamus Heaney plans to write a saga about the great show, after he consults old Jordie about the best way to keep the bogland snipe from perching on his head.

Poor Seamus is a martyr to the bogland snipe.

Flocks of them follow him, as he cycles to the village shop for a new snug pen.

Some snipe even have the audacity to perch on the handlebars and peer into Seamus's poetic visage. No bird in God's creation is harder to shake off than a bogland snipe.

I was sitting in front of the fire, counting my knees with the aid of a calculator, when I heard a scream from the kitchen.

Tommy my cat ran in yelling, "That Oxford dictionary is dangerous. I opened it just now and the word sequesteredness leapt out and hit me a dunt on the head."

"Tell me about it," I yelled. "I was flicking through the dictionary yesterday and the word nonchalance jumped off the page, hit me right up the gub and chipped my tooth."

"What shall we do with that dictionary?" yelled Tommy. "If the word spike or arrow leaped out it could put out an eye."

"Take it back to Eason's," I cried, "and get John Daly's new book, "101 things to do with a bald head" And if they don't stock that, get, "How I survived the great big biblical flood," by Walter Love."

"What a great story that is!" said Tommy. "Walter survived the biblical flood, by clinging on to an inflatable rubber man for 40 days and 40 nights.".

"Walter was lucky," I said,"if a big wave had came along, he could have lost an eye."

"I know," said Tommy. "There's not a day goes by, but Walter is lowered to his knees by block and tackle, to pray to the Lord God almighty for the use of both oculars."

Tommy looked at me and said felinely, "Could Walter Love be a-prophet?"

"Walter Love a prophet?" I laughed,"more like a dead loss."

Do you get it? Profit. Dead loss? Ah forget it."

"One thing I will say about Walter Love" said Tommy, "he sure does know his jazz."

"Why would he not?" I yelled. "He's been shaving them since Moses was a lump of a cub."

Oh how we laughed. With Ha-Has. Tee-Hees and the odd gurgling giggle.

A startled suckling pig with an apple in its mouth ran by our house, closely followed by a panting, red faced Tubby Nolan.

"Hi ratbag" yelled Tubby, "have you seen my lunch, a small, suckling pig with an apple in its mouth?"

"No," I lied. "No small suckling pig with an apple in its mouth, has sprinted past this house with a startled look in its little piggy eye."

"Sugar and spice," cursed Tubby. "It must have given me the slip at the round-a-bout. I bet it was hiding under the discarded mattress."

"Never mind Steven," I said. "You have the look of a glutton who would love bread pudding."

"Bread pudding?" cried Tubby. "I love bread pudding. Bring it on."

I went into the kitchen, picked up a stale, mouldy pan loaf and ran back to the door.

"Here's the bread," I yelled. "Now sling your lard, you fat pudding." and I slammed the door shut on Tubby's large, fat, pink, startled face.

He lumbered off down the street, with the pan loaf clutched under his sweaty oxter roaring,

"Here, piggy, piggy. Here, piggy, piggy. Sue'ee. Sueee. Sueee!"

Just like Johnny Cash!

Moving Statues

Welcome back Kid. During the time you were away,Tommy my cat and I sealed off the corner of the room where the radio sat, with police tape. WARNING! DO NOT ENTER! CRIME SCENE! screamed the yellow fluorescent tape. We were both aware, that Mr Coyle was sitting in a secret bunker, broadcasting high octane diddy-dee music to an unsuspecting public.

In an effort to stop any infiltration, Tommy and I had removed the plug and stuffed a cocktail of Diazepam and Temazepam through the grill of the radio.

As an added precaution,Tommy had drawn on the floor the chalk outline of a man with his hands to his ears in utter agony. We could do no more. All we could do now was wait, as Sean Coyle was unleashed on the poor innocent people of Ulster.

Tommy bit my lip and whispered, "The casualties will be very high."

"I know," I whispered, "We must do what we can. Let's give blood."

We whipped out our respective pen knives and cut each other on the arm. We could do no more. We cowered as we heard the terrible screams, coming from people who had fallen foul of Coyle's dreaded-Diddly-Dee. Then the siren sounded and it was all over.

"A programme to end all programmes," was how Churchill the insurance dog summed it up.

OH YES! OH YES!

As soon as I felt the buzz from the potato bread, I grabbed Tommy by the neck and yelled,

"Where was Gerry? Come on, spit it out. Where was Gerry? We have ways of making you talk. It's called-Primary school."

"It's a fair cop Guv," spluttered Tommy, pointing out the window at Matt Baggott who was going by wearing a Dusty Springfield wig.

"It all began at-Knock," whispered Tommy. "Gerry saw something-move."

"Something move?" I yelled. "What was it, a council workman or a hair on John Daly's dome?"

"Gerry saw a moving-statue," whispered Tommy.

I blessed myself with an open cut throat razor in my hand, which is a very dangerous thing to do and yelled, "Gerry saw a moving statue?"

"Well, yes-and-no," said Tommy. "He was standing on a grassy knoll with a high hedge to his right. Suddenly he saw the head and shoulders of John the Baptist go flying past the hedge. What Gerry didn't know, was that John the Baptist was lashed to the trailer of a small van and was on his way to have his broken arm repaired."

"So our Gerry was conned?" I yelled.

"No!" yelled Tommy. "Our Gerry conned himself. He was in a heightened state of awareness and allowed his eyes to play tricks on himself."

"AH!" I said. "So our Gerry has been in the Priory clinic for a few days."

"No," said Tommy. "Our Gerry has been in Lough Derg for a few days. Lough Derg is closed for the Winter, but our Gerry got the Pope's dispensation to spend four days on Lough Derg, confined to a Monk's cell and fed nothing but water and the stale heels from pan loaves."

"It's his own fault!" I roared. "Did not Oscar Wilde say, "When one sees what one thinks is a moving statue behind a hedge, one should not bet the farm on it. Better if one hedged ones bets."

"Good old Oscar!" cried Tommy. "I wonder how he's getting on these days."

I began to wonder about Oscar Wilde too, and that's how we spent in the rest of the day, in Wilde wonderment.

Courting controversy

What a great show you put on yesterday Kid. To say yesterday's great show was not controversial in the extreme. is akin to saying that Mark Durkin is not in constant touch with reality. Not only were you courting controversy, you were in bed with her, with the duvet pulled up to hide your guilty faces.

First, you and Tubby Nolan sat in the corner losing your religions. Then, just as suddenly, you both found other religions. I suppose from next year, Tubby will be called, Gerald Michael Nolan, and you will answer to the name of Steven Carson Samuel Anderson?

It's a right howdy-do and Tommy my cat is fair flummoxed. "I don't know what name to put on their Christmas cards!" yelled Tommy.

I advised him to let the hare sit. And the hare is still sitting, sitting in a cardboard box, drinking Red Bull and reading Ireland's Own.

THEN! Mr Coyle threw a law and order wobbly. What a rant from Ireland's least known golfer. "Clamp all cars," yelled the Clampet.

"No smoking, no drinking, no walking on the grass, no littering and NO how's your father after nine o'clock on a Saturday night."

What a complex little man he is, a Frankenstein monster made up from Charles Bronson, Oliver Cromwell, Matthew Hopkins, the witch finder general, Mary Whitehouse and Attila the Hun.

Tommy my cat was so frightened, he.....

Well, never mind what he did, but I'm not going out to the back yard for a mop and bucket. Tommy can clean it up himself.

THEN! The Pope phoned in again! Has he nothing better to do? Surely the Pontiff should be up on a chair, decorating the Vatican with balloons and paper chains. Does he not know that Father Brian Darcy has been hanging round the Vatican for a week, with an angel/ fairy in his hand, waiting to attach it to the top of the Christmas tree? This is a wanton waste of father Brian Darcey's time. Father Brian has confessions to hear and Showbands to introduce. Does the Pope not know that? Is he really infallible?

When I heard the guy sing, "What's He Doing In There?" I immediately thought of old Jordie. What is Jordie doing in there? Two weeks ago a wee doat was seen going into Jordie's cottage to dung out his bed. YES!-that's what they call it now. But up to 48 minutes to seven last night, no one has seen hide or hair of either Jordie or the wee doat.

Is it any wonder people are asking,

"WHAT'S HE DOING IN THERE???"

OH, I saw Lynda Byrons buying your Christmas present yesterday. I'm not allowed to say what it is, but I can tell you it will keep you nice and warm.

Oh if you must know, it's a fierce Rottweiler to race you round the roads of Derry and surrounding districts.

But it's the thought that counts, as Carol Volderman said, when she ran up behind Richard Whitley and screamed-"BOO!"