Is Sister Hermann Maria and the Orphanage Fire which She Alone Predict!

Is my very great pleasure today to present for to you the annual apocalyptic predictions from Sister Hermann Marie Assumpta, the well-known hallucinating mystic nun with the migraines and the sunglasses. Notorious for the accuracy of her predictions, Sister Hermann Maria has been preparing all Devouts to brace themselves for the Second Coming of Our Lord God Jesus since 1963, when she experienced her first visitation from Our Lady while on a shopping trip to Medjugorje. She is neverthenonetheless shy of publicity, a handicap in the mystic nun stakes, and which make her not necessarily the best vehicle for maximizing her very important message. Is therefore why I am reproduce below her latest forebodings, knowing that the thousands of pious and holy readers who come to Coddle Pot will take note and do everything they can to circulate her incredible good news.  Here is what she is predict for the year ahead:

January: The Liberal-Left Agenda to destroy Christian civilization continues apace with the introduction of a new BLASPHEMY LAW in Ireland. The new law extends the crime of blasphemy so that it applies not just to Catholicism but also to all other religions, an unwarranted extension of tolerance, cosmopolitanism, pluralism, and barbarism at a time when the need for a muscular Catholicism to guide humanity is at its greatest. As punishment, God will smite each government minister, one by one, with a serious illness, until the law is repealed.

February: As foretold in the Book of Revelation, the DEAD will begin to RISE from the GRAVE. It transpires that they are able to run after all, but don’t do it very often because it’s a waste of energy. Also, despite another popular misconception, they do not eat human flesh, being zombies, not cannibals. They do, however, exhibit a fondness for bestiality and golf.

March: The WHORE OF BABYLON comes from nowhere and goes straight in at Number One with her download-only single, “Hot Love.” Purists argue that it isn’t as good as the T. Rex original, but she observes blithely that they’re missing the point. Her dismissive attitude wins her few friends in the media.  Max Clifford takes on her PR.

April: ITV announces that there will be no more series of Britain’s Got Talent. There is much WAILING AND GNASHING OF TEETH. There is also much inexplicable gnashing of woolens. And a plague of child singers roaming the streets.

May: The first appearance of THE BEAST, as described in the Book of Revelation, The Observer Guide to How to Spot the Beast, and Harry Potter and the Mysterious Tumour of Gold. To the Beast’s consternation, he is not immediately recognized, but this is because he gives his number as 00 353 61 836 66121, which isn’t as immediately memorable as 666. Those who call discover that it is a telesales number for a life insurance company and accident claims specialists. The Beast says in an interview with the Daily Mail that he is “raking it in” but also “spending it like there’s no tomorrow.” Because there isn’t.

June: The Great Irish iPod Famine. Teenagers across the country are distraught. There will be great TEARING OF HAIR AND TEARING OF EYES. On the upside, the art of teenage conversation is briefly revived, and the generation gap is momentarily breached. A 13-year-old in Ballinasloe utters the first word heard by a teenager this millennium: “Whatever.”

July: The sound of SEVEN TRUMPETS will be heard across the entire European landmass, throwing cities into panic, horses into ditches, water into wine, etc. Residents around Croke Park lodge a complaint and stage a picket outside the Dexy’s Midnight Runners reunion concert. Singer Kevin Rowland says the extraordinary volume of his brass section is the result of the cavernous echo of an empty stadium.

August: In line with the Prophecy, SEVEN SEALS are washed up on Brighton beach. A massive row ensues when a so-called “expert” from the local zoo points out that they are not seals at all, but sea lions, escaped from the nearby circus. God is hubristically accused of inattention to detail. Smites Brighton.

September: The most convincing sign yet of the ENDTIMES, September 10 sees the terrifying discovery of a massive gas-giant planet a mere 130 miles from Earth. Everyone says to themselves, “I wondered why the high tide level was in Mansfield.” In mitigation, astronomers say that all their telescopes had been pointed the other way, into deep space. Everybody’s watches stop, yet all trains are suddenly and miraculously “on time,” and not just because of dubious accounting practices. Astrologers are finally vindicated as the real scientists, since they’d been predicting that this would happen every September for the last two centuries.

October: Massive EARTHQUAKE tips San Francisco and L.A. into the sea. About bloody time, say seismologists, homophobes, and fashion gurus. Shares in Bollywood film companies soar.

November: EVOLUTION DISPROVED. In China, there are reports of the discovery of the fossils of a group of centaurs. Religious observers argue that the new find disproves the Darwinian theory of evolution by natural selection. Biologists respond by pointing out that it also disproves Intelligent Design. Only the wisest heads, familiar with the ancient languages of the Bible, realize that these are the four horse-men of the Apocalypse.

December: The END OF THE WORLD. Shops report a noticeable drop-off in pre-Christmas sales. The Day of Judgement beats the X-Factor finals in Christmas Day ratings. The Irish government announces that the economy is on the upturn. A fawning media credit the “brave Taoiseach” for his heroic obliteration of the public sector. God finishes the job by obliterating all other sectors.

I am not a superstitious man in general, but I shall be keeping my finger and leg and eye crossed all year in the hope that Sister Hermann Maria have finally got it right this time. Is all in the hands of Our Lord now. All we can do is pray!

Baby Jesus, meek and mild
Bless the faithful with your smile
Holy Jesus, sacred child
Keep us safe from all things vile

Down from heaven, into manger
Out from slick and slimy thighs
Blood and mucous, lots of danger
Herod’s communist atheist spies

Masturbators, fornicators
Dirty Muslim, Filthy Jew
Double daters, weak dictators
Split their bestial skulls in two

Let blood splatter, cranial matter
To the glory of our Lord
Gay brown hatter, fanny batter
Put the heathen to the sword

Little donkey, one-eyed monkey
Two small camels, talking frog
Hear his sermon, godless vermin
In original Spanish, Catalan dog

Hear the message, peace and love
Listen, sinner, and obey
Iron fist in iron glove
You must kneel and you must pay

See his picture, in the Prado
Beauty wasted on common horde
Give them all the bastinado
If that fails, try waterboard

Gentle Jesus, in a stable
Angels watching, virgin birth
Real Madrid top of the table
Franco’s boys best team on Earth

Loving Jesu, son of God
Kill the pagans, curse the gay
Spoil their children with the rod
Remind them all, is Christmas Day.

Feliz Navidad y una Feliz Año Nuevo to all my reader.

Muchos besos

Manuel

Above all else Black Friday is a day for amateurs, the sort of people who only go out once, maybe twice, a year. It’s a day when drinks are mixed at an alarming rate and grape and grain become entwined in a frightening stomach churning cocktail. It’s a cocktail that’s destined to return within a few hours. Idiots. But who am I to question them? Bacardi Breezer sir with a dark rum and 7up, why of course. I am just a conduit through which bad things happen and bridge if you will from sane to mental insanity.

It was with all this in mind that I faced the one very amusing moment of the day. It was the last sitting of the night and all the waiters and chums of waiters were cranky and not in the mood for suffering fools or in any way be nice to paying guests. Our souls were dark and our bellies were empty. Seriously, I was coming on 12 hours at this point with nothing but a eleven minute break and a supermarket Snickers by way of sustenance and was quite in the mood for telling someone to stuff their turkey up their fa la la la la la. If you know what I mean.

Anyhoo my last table of the evening was a lively bunch of young people, by young people I mean sub 25. Actually I should have carded half of them but was well past caring about who was of legal age for the consumption of hard liquor. They could have been shooting up through their eyelids for all I cared just as long as they didn’t ask me for anything before they drifted off into their “happy place”. They were shop staff from one of the high street chemists, not the big one but the one just under it. They were also quite hairy and this hair was everywhere, in all directions. Honestly I saw one chap, it could have been a lady but I’m plumping for chap, that pretty much ate his turkey through his hair. It was a charming hair/turkey/gravy mess of a scenario. I moved the cranberry beside him in hope of adding to the mess but the fucker never went for it.

These kids, whilst charming and jolly amusing were too cool to eat and most of them fidgeted with their soup and poked at their turkey with all the enthusiasm of eh well teenagers. These kids were soooo cool that one young woman opted not to wear anything over her pants, there she sat in what could only be described as her underpants pushing turkey round her plate whilst texting her non-work chums. It’s not like this in January let me tell you. But I digress. I was busy with the serving and the schlepping of turkey and salmon and wonderfully charred steaks when I happened upon a young woman whilst carrying three plates of turkey.

“Madam, are you having turkey this evening?”, I asked with a weariness that more than suggested my lack of care about what she had ordered.

“Turkey? Aye I’m having the turkey mate”, replied the woman.

“Well could you move yer dildo then?’, I replied casually as if customers are forever leaving their jelly dildos on the dinner table.

Obviously she did and the table erupted in  mass laughter. She did move her dildo and I got on with what I was doing.

Twenty years of waiterly service, through the troubles and everything, and I can honestly say I have never had to ask a guest to move their dildo before so I could set their food down. It’s an odd age we live in.

Have a jolly few days. See you on the other side and remember keep yer dildo off the Christmas dinner table, granny wont approve.

And as it turns out, I’m no adult.

God, I was polluted. Polluted. I proposed Jagermeister as an aperitif for the masses. I’ve was almost Christ-like in the amount of times I wobbled and fell over. I told every one of my colleagues exactly what I thought of them, which is worse than it sounds, because alcohol severely short-circuits my enthusiasm inhibitor. I’m like the company’s one-woman cheerleading squad.

“You’re marvellous, you are. You’re so great with clients. And your eyes are only beautiful. I want us to be friends forever. Why don’t we spend more time together? We don’t spend enough time together.”

It’s horrendous, because I like to think of myself as poised, intelligent, dynamic, forward-thinking, great company … oh, hold on, I’m reading from our corporate literature. The sentiment corresponds, though. I have a much higher opinion of myself than my actions warrant. My ambition far exceeds my capabilities as a functioning fucking person. Whenever I get too much alcohol into me, I turn into some sort of graceless bouncing ball of dribbly enthusiasm. It fucking kills me.

Well, don’t drink, then. Logic, no?

You’d think it would be easier than it is to follow the logical path. I’m not a huge fan of alcoholic drinks, taste-wise. I like a nice jammy red wine, and the odd cold pint of cider, and the lighter-tasting beers like that girly, girly Corona. Other than that, though, I’m quite hard to please. I often find myself stumped in pubs, with an audience of cranky barpersons tapping their talons off the bar and rolling their eyes at my humming and hawing. Perhaps I just shouldn’t drink. I wouldn’t be missing much, let’s face it.

Yet I persist. I find that if I don’t make a conscious decision at the start of the night to watch my intake, I get as drunk as a skunk and have to be sectioned for the sanity of strangers, all of whom are WONDERFUL and should be MY FRIENDS FOR LIFE because we are so COMPATIBLE. I’m not alone, either. I could tell you a thousand stories involving drunken gobshites. Friends twisting ankles in nightclubs. Other friends lying down in the middle of the road, crying. Friends starting fights with other friends, but not the other friends that were lying down in the middle of the road, other friends again. It’s a kaleidoscope of preposterously irresponsible carry-on, and one that, at twenty-eight, I’m far too fucking old for. Binge drinking isn’t just a health hazard; it’s a calamitous embarrassment. I don’t know why I do it – to keep up with the lads? Because the drink is there and I can’t say no to a free soaking? I’m covered in bruises and most of them are from my beating myself up about the whole thing; the rest of them are from falling out of my five-inch heels and my dignity.

God almighty.

I’m no lush; I don’t crave alcohol, nor drink every day, nor even every weekend. I don’t have the need for alcohol that I have for caffeine; if I had to give up my espresso, I’d struggle. I don’t feel like there would be a struggle if I gave up the sauce. So why don’t I give up the fucking sauce? Because how boring would nights out be without the fucking sauce?! GOD HELP US ALL!

Is this what the Christmas season is all about? Getting trolleyed? I don’t like being drunk, and I can’t stand hangovers, and I’m getting to the stage in my life where I have to take a long hard look at myself and the image of said self that I want to present to the world. Falling over in front of the MD won’t cut it.

I’m a grown-up. Honest to God. Now all I have to do is start believing it and acting like it.

Take it easy this silly season, readers. I ain’t going to say Don’t Drink, because I’ll doubtless forget all this mortification and have a tipple or two before the … hour is out. I’ll probably make a twat of myself again before the year is out, and wonder if I shouldn’t cut out such behaviour to spare morning-after blushes, because I’m hopelessly impressionable, and getting worse. Yeah. But you lot should take it easy.

I won’t be back here on Coddlepot for a good week or so, because I have things to do and people to apologise to. Fie on me and my Irish liver.

Happy Christmas.

But dismissive comment. We’re an enlightened people – no, let me stop you there before you snigger and snort. We are. We live in times of Information and Education, where knowledge is prized and available to everyone. Libraries are cheap, internet access is cheap, informed cop-on is cheap. We’ve grown up, have we not? So why the fuck do we need these moral guardians, these purveyors of a fear and loathing badly masked behind snippy concern and quivering shoulders? No one needs to preach to me guff about the true path. My moral compass is just fine. As should yours be.

We’re not children.

I understand that there is a need for belief in a higher power, and that there is comfort in feeling that you are part of a bigger picture, and that personifying an overwhelming sense of there being a greater good can be a positive thing. There is nothing wrong with believing in God. There is nothing wrong with following a set of ancient teachings, so long as you harm no other while you’re getting on with your chosen guff. I also figure that religion is a personal thing. You and I may belong to the same tradition, or the same church, but we won’t necessarily believe the same things. We might take a particular church’s manifesto as a jumping-off point, and mould it as best we can around ourselves. Even when it’s organised, it’s intensely personal. Certainly there are fuck all die-hard Catholics in this country, still gamely clinging to church traditions that were jiggled loose generations ago. You might be a faithful Mass-goer, for example, but you hope your twenty-something daughter is on the pill. You don’t have to follow the Word to the Letter to be a practising member of your congregation.

Just keep it to your fucking selves, yes? No matter what level of martyrdom you think you’re at, you don’t have the right to shovel your personal beliefs down the gullets of your neighbours. And even if you consider yourself Missionary Par Excellence, do you really, really give a fuck if all them tipsy infidels end up in Hell? You’re going to Heaven anyway, aren’t you? Why do you need a whole bunch of strangers in there with you?

Now, the first two examples I gave above, those of Donal Murray and Sean Sheehy, are rather more than simple cases of Holy Busybodies, in that they involve Irish Law. Murray facilitated the sexual abuse of vulnerable children. Sheehy went on national radio to stick two fingers to the Irish justice system by stating that the offence for which his chosen lost lamb was convicted was only “alleged”. Religious figures they may be, but in both instances I don’t think their professions (I can’t use the word vocation; my reason should be obvious) excuse them. Sheehy defends a convicted predator. Murray facilitates evil. They have no authority to speak for a higher Authority, and we all know it. Their moral qualifications aren’t worth the castles in the air they’re based on.

John Faris, of the Trinity Presbyterian Church, is different. He’s doing nothing more than sticking his oar in – he’s more of an annoyance than anything else, a big fuck-off ant at a picnic. The LGBT carol service that he was whinging about wasn’t in his church, or not even in a church of his faith.  He just doesn’t like the gays.

“There can be no true joy or peace in actively practising and celebrating a lifestyle which does not please God” he said, and you have to ask what the fuck he bases that on. The Bible? Please. Did God write the Old Testament? Did anyone who actually hung out with Jesus Christ write the New Testament? Is it not likely that whatever oral tradition the legends came from didn’t fall vulnerable to opportunistic langers along the way, who added in bits and pieces from their own fears and prejudices to the Fear n’ Prejudice pot? Doesn’t anyone ever question the validity of the Good Book? Ever tested its sources? If we’re going by the Bible, shouldn’t menstruating women be banned from church activities? Aren’t haircuts sinful? Shouldn’t eveyone wearing mixes of fabrics in their glad rags be excommunicated? How can you pick and choose from the hallucinogenic twaddle in the Old Testament, if not to reinforce your own fears and validate your own narrow-mindedness? It’s fucking codswallop!

Besides, surely it’s an action of extreme arrogance to think that you can speak for this “God” concept? Whether God is an indescribable force, or a bearded dude sitting on a cloud, what gives anyone the right to speak for him/her/it/Alanis?

Come on, to fuck. How dare any ordinary human fucking being have a go at something as important as the very identity of another? LGBT people are LGBT because they made a lifestyle choice, according to Mr. Faris. I despair. Has the man ever met a homosexual, or bisexual, or transsexual person? Has he ever tut-tutted them to their faces, in their homes, surrounded by their families, and asked them to give up their “lifestyles” as you’d ask a child to put down a scruffy toy? In his heart of hearts, as a moral crusader, can he really believe that ordinary, good people are displeasing to some vague deity?

He probably can. What a muppet.

Yet we listen, for some reason. We listen to these pontificating simpletons as if their words resonate and as if they know more than the rest of us. And they don’t, y’know. They really don’t. Our laws are there to protect us against one another, our friends and families are there to protect us from ourselves. Of course you’ll get the odd broken soul who has no more a moral compass than a tumbleweed in an empty ceann; that’ll happen. But that doesn’t mean we have a need for prophets and ethics salesmen; we should be able to come up with our rights and wrongs all by ourselves.

We should know that in Ireland. Of all fucking places, we should know that in Ireland. Just because someone statuesque says he speaks for Heaven and he’s got the guidebook, doesn’t mean he’s any more or less than the average gobshite trundling their way from cradle to grave.

As the recent actions of Donal Murray, Sean Sheehy, and John Faris should illustrate.

I don’t need people like that to make my decisions for me. It confounds me that anyone would; we’ve come a long way, baby …

But we’re not there yet.

Tamara,
Sligo

It’s not all about the accident Tamara. These days, a fractured penis is as treatable as a common cold: a splint and a couple of Nurofen, and bish-bash-bosh, Bob’s your uncle.

No, it was a different game back then, and I’m not sure I recognise what the industry has become. There used to exist a parity between story-line and intercourse. In fact, I wrote, starred in, and directed ‘Close Encounters of the Sex Kind’, still the only adult movie ever made in which nobody has sex (I was successfully sued for flagrant false advertising in a class-action suit that cost me 13.6 million Canadian dollars).

…

For the last time, keep your God damned cat out of my tree. Or so help me, I’ll drag it down and put manners on it myself. Do you even have a license for that thing?

Cormac,
Tralee

License? For a puma? In Ireland? Are you kidding?

Best of luck getting him out of the tree. If I can’t stop him killing the local livestock, and I’m his owner, I really fear for your chances of dragging him out of a tree by his tail. Bring lots of bandages, is all I’d say.

…

My Dad says you have a chip on your shoulder because you didn’t win the part of Christy Brown in My Left Foot. Were you even in the running?

Geoff,
London

In the running? Let’s just say I was made assurances Geoff, and on the strength of those assurances did a lot of preparation for the part. For example, I learnt to paint, visited with the Brown family on numerous occasions, and spent a full year moving nothing but my right foot (I misread the script).

Day Lewis only pipped me because budgets were tight and he brought his own wheelchair.

…

I’m still waiting on those insurance details. I trusted you to send them on, because you said it was an emergency and you had to dash. That van is my family’s livelihood. People are depending on me,

Jill,
Cabra

Hi Jill, I’m going to let my lawyer Frank field this one:

Hi Jill, Frank here. It is illegal to leave the scene of an accident before the police arrive. Both you and my client have broken this law, and therefore neither one of you can legally make a claim against the other. Have a nice day.

Yeah, have a nice day Jill.

…

I don’t care what the paternity test says, he is your child. Why won’t you accept him?

Patricia,
Athenry

We’ve been through this Patricia. When the paternity test proved he wasn’t mine, I was relieved. Afterwards, when the maternity test proved he wasn’t even yours, I was more confused than anything. But when the doctor confirmed that you and I are biological twins? That was the last straw. The physical relationship is over. Happy birthday sis.

…

Is it true you invented the mobile phone?

Donna,
Glasnevin

No Donna, I invented the ‘Immobile Phone’, a communication device fashioned from a wrought iron, Blacksmith’s anvil. It never caught on, even among blacksmiths. Only one hundred were ever made, all of which were eventually melted down to make smaller, better anvils with no call-making features.

…

Your son Chad recently paid emotional tribute to his mother during his acceptance speech at the 2009 Surfing World Championship. Afterwards, holding the trophy aloft, he said, “See this Dad? Up yours, old man. Up yours.” What gives?

Joel,
Fermanagh

I believe he was referring to how I never believed in him, Joel. I thought he would amount to jack-squat, and told him so at every available opportunity throughout his life. Boy did he prove me wrong, not only with the surfing, but his PHD in Advanced Thermonuclear Physics and subsequent Nobel prize nomination.

I still have a feeling that he’ll screw it all up though, and amount to nothing. So I’ll continue to keep him at arm’s length until I see some real results. It’s unfortunate that he’s fallen ill of late, but I’m sure we’ll have plenty of time to patch things up once he gets back on his feet and out of the hospice.

A Souvenir of Milan!

At first the rumour I was hearing was that Berlusconi had been hit by Milan Cathedral. This confuse me because I was think that it mean he was hit nearby the cathedral, but then someone else was say, No, it was by the cathedral itself, which confuse me even more!  However, I figure that here in Spain we have many shrines, Madonnas, reliquaries, and cetera that cry, bleed, dance, sing, tell jokes, play music, and so on, so why not should the cathedral have attack him? Is very spiky, and that would esplain the cut under his eye.

Church Launches Assault on Berlusconi

But since then, the rumour have changed and that he was hit not by the cathedral at all but by a small model version of it, made of marble and metal, which catch him just nicely. However, nobody have been able to retrieve the projectile, and it sound very implausible and unlikely that someone who have it in for Berlusconi would concock a plot that might involve throwing a small religious souvenir artefact at him when they are in fact close enough to get him with something better, such as a brick, a bullet, or a bucket of poo. Therefore this suggest to me that this was not an assault as was describe in the papers at all, but in fact an unfortunate accident that have occurred because of the heavy security which surround Berlusconi. This would make much more sense of the information as we know them.

This is what I think have happen:  A wish-weller was want to get close to Berlusconi to give him a Christmas gift of a snow globe.   Berlusconi was being surrounded by hundreds of wish-wellers on this occasion, but the security around him is always very heavy, usually an elite unit of 16-year-old female models. The wish-weller, unable to reach him, therefore decide the best he could do would be to lob his globe in the general direction of the prime minister and hope that he see it coming. Evidence in favour of this theory is that Berlusconi, after being hit, climbed back out of the car again to try to find the wish-weller and thank him for the gift. Also the comment from the fascist leader Umberto Bossi, who was describe the events as the actions of a terrorist. Anyone who know the Italian history will know that it is fascists who are mostly the responsible for terrorist acts, and this therefore suggest that the individual responsible was simply showing his admiration for the Duce of Desire.

Do Not Throw Pointy Gifts!

I am suspect that the globe was like this one, with penguins on, which have lots of beaks, which could easily have caught Berlusconi askry and smash his teeth in, an important lesson for children not to throw presents at one another. Or if you are throwing presents, make sure they have soft edges.

Is a Much Safer Option

In all the confusion that was happen after Berlusconi get twatted, the Italian police was spring into action with their usual efficiency and arrest the first person they could find with a history of mental illness; this is to send the message that only a nutter would carry out such a malevolent and crazy act. Of course, this was a crowd of Berlusconi supporters, remember, so it was not a difficult job for the police.  They could have done it blindfold! If you are pick any supporter of the Peoples of Freedom Movement you are likely to find they have a history of mental illness, a criminal record, or both. Usually both. So was a good chance they would get some idiot willing to say he was the person throwing the globe, and in the end they are settle on Massimo Tartaglia (the Guardian have finally got round to a nice slide show, here). Tartaglia, interestingly, is the Italian word for Patsy.

According to the Times newspaper of England, Berlusconi was had a premonition of his attack. He was confide to his spokesman on the way to Milan that “something might happen to him today” because of the climate of hate against him. This is not a very good premonition, though, I think you will agree. It is rank up their with Joe Coleman’s predictions that Our Lady will appear in Knock, or JFK’s comment, “Is such a nice day here today in Dallas, I think we should put the top down.”  had he any sense at all,  Berlusconi would be say that before every time he appear in public!  If anything, he should consider himself lucky he was not lamped the way Mussolini was.

The event have already massive international repercussions.  I am suspect now that Biff O’Cowen is giving second thoughts to taking a hard line against union action by the Irish Gardaí, who he is threatening with legal action if they strike. I am think he would prefer to have them committed to protecting him from bad-wishers, of which there are now several in Ireland, rather than accidentally letting them through. Fortunately, the Irish have just pass a law which allow anyone with a gun in their house to shoot intruders to death with it, which will mean I espect that all burglars will now also carry guns in case they are disturb, and everyone who have not got a gun will also now want to get one in case burglars have one and because they can shoot with impumity. Biff and his colleagues in government have been very foresight in anticipating attacks on their person. From now on, they are tell us with this law, they will be packing heat, so even if you are thinking when they come round to your house canvassing, “I can invite him in then shoot him and say he was an intruder,” you can espect him to have a bigger gun than you and be ready to use it.  After all, the government have already demonstrate with their budget that they are understand the Madman theory of deterrence. Would any sensible person be willing to risk taking on Wild-eye Biff and Calamity O’Dea when there is no guarantee that their actions will be bound by reason or ethics?

Berlusconi should take notice of how to treat the public in future. Always keep them at arms’ length. Firearms’ length!

There are two types of people when it comes to getting dressed for the big night out, those that do, and those that don’t. Some people put the effort in and some people don’t. Now I’m not saying that those who put the effort in are always the best dressed far from it. Some people can look great wrapped in a bin bag, some look like sweetie wrappers when they have spent hundreds of pounds on getting the right outfit. I have to declare that I have to put a suit load of effort into looking good. I change 5 times and inevitably end up with what I started with. It’s the large tum tum you see. I’m never sure if I should try and conceal it or be proud of it. Saying that concealing it would be quite some feat. I would need some sort of magic shirt with cloaking capabilities. Anyway here is my sartorial advice for the big night out for what it’s worth…

Firstly it’s your night out and you should want to feel relaxed and comfortable. The little Jimmy Choo shoes may look fabulous in the box but if your trotters are going to be mashed up and sore all night is it really worth it? Is it? At the same time it is great to get dressed up for a night out. But do it for yourself not for Brain/Jill in marketing in the vein hope that they see you looking a million dollars (not Canadian dollars I should add) and fall in love with you. Wear what makes you happy, with some obvious provisos. That said you are out in public, you are in a restaurant and we have some standards that must be met. So to that end all outfits made with velour are banned as are anything with a Nike/Adidas/Reebok logo. This isn’t gym time.

Please, please, please go easy on the ol fake tan. I had a table of 10 ladies in my section last year and each one of them had fake tanned it to the max. It wasn’t pretty. The women that opted for the heat lamp approach actually glowed not in a nice healthy way but in a radiation alert sort of way. It was like they had popped their heads into a nuclear reactor before coming out. The rest of the ladies resembled the famous Terracotta Army of the First Qin Emperor. They glowed too but it was a very patchy glow. This applies equally to both sexes as I notice some chaps are at it now too.

Now we all now you are only a young as you feel. And you may feel 18 when you are in fact 53, and that’s fantastic. Saying that when I was 18 I was full of hormones, spots and teenage angst so I would really rather feel 35 than 18, well maybe not 35, 23 was good I liked being 23. But whilst you may feel 18 we all know you are 53. You cant pull off the mini skirt/cropped top look any more (sir), honest you cant. I don’t say this to be cruel, I really don’t. But please try and dress, if not your actual age, at least something from the same decade. This goes for the chaps too. Putting a gallon of your son’s gel in your hair doesn’t make you look any younger. In fact it makes you look exactly what you are, middle aged and desperate. And don’t borrow his clothes either. He will hate you and more importantly you will hate yourself in the morning.

Wearing a t-shirt that says “Rebel” on it or some other shite slogan such as “Punk” or “Crazy” when you are in fact an accountant who has never done anything remotely rebellious save for stay out late one night when you were in university doesn’t make you a rebel, a punk or crazy. It makes you look sad, and that’s sad in a “I want to weep for” you sort of way. Please don’t do it. If you want to look casual for the night just don’t wear a tie with your nice M and S shirt. You will feel better for it and more relaxed. Don’t wear whacky clothes. The ironic Hawaiian shirt in winter doesn’t impress anyone. Santa hats are okay if you must jazz things up. But those hats with mistletoe hanging off them are sad and will make you look like a letch.

So there you are feeling fantastic, looking like something from Kay’s Catalogue and you spot someone with the same outfit on. Don’t for the love of Jesus get all upset and start crying and bitchy about it. It’s no way for a man to act. Seriously though unless you had your outfit hand made by the orphaned children of a Parisian dress maker the chances are some one else will have been to Primark and picked the same outfit. Take comfort in the fact that you look better in it than they do. Try and avoid being in the toilets at the same time as them though. You know some people can be very cruel.

Then there is the office “weirdo”, the kid that likes Radiohead and doesn’t drink and always has his head in a book. He wants to look different. He wants his outfit to have people talking about him. He will say “It’s just clothes man. It doesn’t mean anything. You are all so self involved.” and other such claptrap. But really he means, “I’m not one of you. I’m different. I like French movies.” So he wears a blazer with badges on the lapel his mothers blouse, and skinny jeans and white converse shoes. And he probably spent an hour perfecting his hairs just out of bed look. He looks great, he feels great, then he spots 47 year old Gerry in accounting with the same outfit on and he sulks for the rest of the night and pulls a battered copy of an old Chomsky book and starts to read at the table. (In the hope that people notice him being weird again.) If there are one of these types at your table make him wear a party hat. There is nothing funnier than a emo kid in a party hat.

Slutty isn’t sexy. God knows I’ve tried it, what with the backless cowboy chaps and other things. The only breasts I want to see on my tables are turkey breasts and even they are covered (in cranberry jus). Put them away, save that treat for later. I don’t need to see your muffin top, your side boob, or anything else for that matter. Just cause Lindsey, Britney and Paris do it doesn’t mean you have to, put your keks on! As for the lads, if I can count the hairs on your balls your jeans are too tight and you aren’t impressing anyone. And from where I am standing it looks like you have a tennis ball down there Mr Inadequate.

It’s winter, it’s gonna be cold, chances are it’s gonna rain. Bring a coat. Wow I sound like everyone’s mother now. But seriously you and the entire population of Belfast/wherever are going to try and get a taxi home at the same time. You are going to be outside suffering the December weather for quite a while. Bring a coat, and maybe a scarf. You’ll thank me for it.

I hope you all have a great night out. I hope you all enjoy the food and get great service (or the service you deserve) from your waiter. I hope none of you cry or go mental. I hope you look and feel fantastic. I hope the office groper leaves you alone. I hope you make it home safely, and with the one you want or back to the one you love. But mostly I hope you tip like millionaires……

]]> http://www.coddlepot.com/2009/12/15/sartorial-advice-for-the-office-christmas-party/feed/ 5 http://www.coddlepot.com/2009/12/15/sartorial-advice-for-the-office-christmas-party/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/CoddlePot/~3/6zPN2HL9iew/ http://www.coddlepot.com/2009/12/14/white-trash/#comments Mon, 14 Dec 2009 00:01:13 +0000 Sweary http://www.coddlepot.com/?p=2118 I don’t know when or why I first started hating milk. Presumably I drank it as a smallie – I hardly started off on hot ports and sausage sandwiches, despite what my figure suggests – but now, I find it repulsive. And I mean that literally; I’m repelled into the next room by the stuff. I get the gawks when I see or smell it. I can’t watch Avonmore ads when they come on the telly. And it’s not dairy products. I have no fear or hatred of cheese; cheese takes up three tiers on my food pyramid. I’ll have butter in my popcorn. I like ice-cream cones. I eat creamy sauces with pasta. But fuck me, I hate milk. For whatever reason, chalked down to whatever logic, milk is a concept unfathomable. Milk can fuck the fuck off.

Although I don’t know why I hate milk, it’s my best guess that I hate the colour white because I hate milk. I know butter comes from milk, but it doesn’t bother me. I know that “white” does not equals “milk”, but it bothers me rotten, regardless. What a fucking hue it is – boring, prone to discolouration, about as flattering as Speedos sewn by left-handed homophobes. I married in a golden dress, you know. I don’t own even one pair of white socks, no crisp white shirt … there’s never been a single greying undergarment on my clothesline. And yes, maybe milk has something to do with that (although it would be rather wonktacular of my psyche to have permitted it), but also, let’s face it, I’m Irish. And the Irish are simultaneously ruddy and pale; the colour of our faces shifts and blends like a Japanese tea ritual performed in a canoe. White clothing does not suit the Irish.

Which is odd, because we’re so fucking fond of it. Even the jersey of our national football team is a poxy shade of nothing, so we wander like great fucking blancmanges, our heads balanced like nipply cherries on top. Red of face with a wishy-washy chest? Hmph. White does not suit the Irish.

Young Irish men, in particular, are very fond of the colour white. Trackie pants, footy jerseys, hoodies, t-shirts … Irish boys clad themselves a whiter shade of stale, and they’re oblivious to it. It’s all made possible by Irish Mammies and their addiction to Daz, bleach and hands scrubbed raw. Irish boys in blinding ivory tend to be of a certain social class *coughcoughworking*, as do Irish Mammies who can’t get off the tumbledrier. Surrounded by my male cousins and friends up at home, I look like a chess piece in serious trouble. So I hate the colour white. Hate it. But you can’t take away an Irish Mammy’s right to dazzle, nor the right of an Irish fella to cow opponents with his milky, milky wardrobe. The whiter the wardrobe, the rougher the neck; a boy who’s box-fresh will box you sour, no doubt about it.

But I’ll put up with a ghostly gobshite, because like I said, they’re my cousins and mates and I love them; I know they’re just accessorising with their Silk Cuts. So long as a fellas’ knickers aren’t white underneath the Adidas strides.

Jesus, I hate white kecks on a man. White underwear belongs on nanas’ washing lines, nowhere else, which is why I call them knickers. A skanger should never look like a flat-chested nun on disrobing. Even Jean Paul Gaultier falls into the knickerific horror, with his insistence on putting acceptably perfect male models into biniki bottoms.

I don’t agree with this. There is no excuse for a man’s looking like Ursula Andress from the waist down. Even worse when our gussetted friend is standing up …

I mean, c’mon. Mike Baldwin made sexier kecks than that. Yer man above has a very nice bottom, I’m sure; he probably even shaves it. But from where I’m sitting, he looks like an elderly aunt who’s half a sneaky fart away from a skidmark. I shouldn’t be thinking that! I wouldn’t, if he was wearing black jocks, or Superman jocks, or, God help us, if he was Commando and all over the shop. But white? High-waisted white? The arse he got from a divine sculptor, his smalls on offer at Tesco. It’s just wrong, Jean Paul! WRONG!

Why do us Irish plebs feel most comfortable in Tippex’d runners? Can a male model be trusted to avoid skid-addling in his kecks? Was this whole blog post a ruse to find out what colour thong Old Knudsen’s wearing? I’m no more interested in delving into psychoanalysis than you are, dear reader; I’m not all that bothered as to whether there’s a deeper reason for my aversion to all things pure and colourless. Milk-related, or am I just of superior fashion sense? Who cares. I hate white. We shouldn’t attempt it. And I worry that really ghey fragrance ads could have a detrimental effect, even in a country plagued by chalky bollixes. Chalky, ugly bollixes. Ugh. I’m leaving.

With so many irks of national importance, or impotence, or whatever, it’s difficult to manage my anger, to spread it out in focused, constructive rants. What does one do when one is angry at things much, much bigger than oneself? What does one do when the issues run so deep and banjax so many, when the perpetrators cannot be touched because razing an ivory tower is even more difficult than it sounds? Where the fuck do I go with this rage? Who the fuck can I launch it at?

I don’t have the answers, but the amount of fwd: fwd: fwd: mail I’m getting in the last week is really helping distract me.

There are people out there with my email address that really shouldn’t be allowed next nor near the net. I’m not talking about spammers! Russian brides trying to sell me Rolex-branded Viagra through Facebook verification … no, nothing of the sort. I’m talking about people from this era, from this society … real fucking people! People who should know their arse from their elbow, friends and colleagues and aunties and buds who I’ve willingly surrounded myself with … so the whole thing might be my fault, really. I’ve opened the gates of madness and the gobshites have wandered in, dragging themselves on their arses and drooling into their nosebags. Brian Lenihan is obnoxious, callous and cushioned from reality, but at least he’s not a fucking numbskull who surprises me every time he remembers to put his knickers on one leg at a time.

Not like the imbeciles who send me emails telling me I’m going to “lose my family” if I don’t copy and forward within eight minutes. I’m sorry, guys, you’re my nearest and dearest and all, but what the fuck? Are people that moronic that they think not forwarding a nasty, badly written piece of cybertoss will kill their kittens and cripple their nans? WHO THE FUCK BELIEVES THIS? “Ooh, better safe than sorry!” is the sheepish dribble, leading me to believe that some of my email contacts spend their lives phoning psychic hotlines and asking the lunatic on the other end for financial advice while their fucking brains trickle out their noses. When they’re not forwarding me superstitious glurge written with the skill of a moose genuflecting on a keyboard, that is. Absolute cuntosity of the highest order. Even if you were that superstitious, and even if you had something nearing an excuse for it, like that you once rear-ended a witchdoctor on the Red Cow Roundabout (not a euphemism), do you care that little about me that you’ll gladly point your fucking demons in my direction? “See her, Lucifer? She boos when Leona Lewis comes on the telly, she deserves your wrath next!” Wither on up the daisy chain, is that it? YOU ARE FUCKING STUPID CUNTS! Go back to smearing shit in your hair in the corner, thank you.

People who try to feck their boogymen in my direction are bad, but by no means are they any worse than the spatulas who claim that if I don’t forward their twee, fluffy poem about friendship and/or Gawd, I am heartless or deficient or dead on the inside. May their teeth shrivel and their nostrils cave outwards! Since when is it a measure of heart or high regard to shunt purple prose up someone’s arse? If someone tells me that my failing to send back … send back! … a picture of a fucking calico cat with Me Wuv My Fwends written under it is symptom of my dismissal of their best intentions, they’re ABSOLUTELY FUCKING RIGHT. Never send me Hallmark rhymes, virtual kisses, or related pixelated fucktardery; I take to it about as well as an albatross does to a Trivial Pursuit tournament. Take your glitter text and fuck off. Have I said fuck off enough times in this post? I think it could take another. FUCK OFF.

Now, it’s not right that the spaz-dance of the fwd: fwd: mails should distract me when there is so much of real worth and consequence that I could be dissecting. Sometimes, real anger is far too big a deal for a comedy blog; you’ll never have the impact with satire that you will with a heartfelt expression, not when it comes to such issues as those casting shadows in Ireland at the moment. So I focus on throwaway stupidity, and something we can all share and roll our eyes at. It beats telling you lot that I’m no longer proud of being Irish, doesn’t it?

Small mercies, I suppose. Which is why I’m happy that we all giggle at this for the time being …

Good, innit?