You have such a graphic sensibility.

*blushes with false modesty* Aw…thanks. I can do you some nice “stink lines” emanating from a turd too if you’d like.

I’m off to town to await arrest in my GUARDS LOVE GOATSE t-shirt. The distended anus is made from a toilet roll insert.

Good man. This is the kind of provocative cut and paste approach we need in troubled times. Let me know how you get on.

Though if you do get busted (by a Garda Flynn) then I’ll be denying any involvement in helping to inspire the stunt.

“And this bishop: Tell me Garda Flynn, did he appear to enjoy being pissed on by this sexy cartoon horse?�

I’m not a fan of LOLs or ROFLMAOs or similar mirth abbreviations but I did nearly piss my trousers when I read that.

“And tell me Garda Flynn: Are you totally convinced, in you own mind, that this crude dotted line represented piss? I mean, it could have been indicative of, for example, machine gun fire. The comics I read as a lad were full of such imagery.”

Trails of pee can easily be rendered with a simple dotted line.

You have such a graphic sensibility.
I’m off to town to await arrest in my GUARDS LOVE GOATSE t-shirt. The distended anus is made from a toilet roll insert.

(a) How transgressive a t-shirt would have to be to get you arrested; and
(b) How you’d get on in court.

I imagine it playing out like this. The guards arrest and charge you. Eventually they send you off home, forgetting to take the t-shirt from you. You turn up on your court date and the Guard decides that he’d rather drop the whole thing than have to describe, red-facedly, the filthy contents of your vile t-shirt in a level of detail sufficient to ensure a conviction. Man, I’d love to be cross-examining in that one.

“And this bishop: Tell me Garda Flynn, did he appear to enjoy being pissed on by this sexy cartoon horse?”

I might ask Ruth to knock up something:
http://nicedaydesigns-ruth.blogspot.com/

Simon suggested to me that what might happen would be a) The guards haul you in on some sort of public disorder rap, and, b) They say they’ll let the judge sort out the degree of legal transgression (if any).

Thoughts?

There’s a gulf of difference between satire and emulation.

Indeed. The stuff that dominates the Irish scene seems to be driven primarily by a desire to be entertaining (and to do amusing voices) rather than anger. Anger is at the bottom of all good satire I reckon. It’s only a starting point of course. You still need to be funny (obviously) and capable of crafting decent comedy/satire. If you’re too satisfied and content with the way things are then, almost inevitably, the results will merely be, say, wigs and high-larious nasally voices etc.

The radio stuff like Gift Grub, or the watery Bull Island is all about gas caricatures of gas characters.

Absolutely. And the “targets” enjoy it! I’ve visions of Bertie Ahern seeing one of the Bull Island crew at the Galway races and giving him the old “You’re an awful man!” nod, wink and grin. Off they go to have a pint together and suck each other off.

RE: Gift Grub – it’s notable that it’s slotted into the show of one of Ireland’s most relentless “Ah now” men – Ian Dempsey. “Ah now, you shouldn’t be slaggin’ off Boyzone. They’re great for the country” et cetera, et fucking cunty cetera.

The Colbert speech to the White House Press Association illustrates how it should be done. It didn’t get big laughs from the audience (”Ah now” types to a man), but it has aged well because it hit hard. Satire isn’t supposed to be a bit of fun. If you can’t even offend the target, let alone anyone in the audience, it’s not satire at all.

Our situation, in contrast, doesn’t seem to allow this kind of defence of radical, intentional art/performance etc. You have to climb down and say – “Sorry lads. I didn’t mean to upset anyone. Or cause anyone to become mad and depraved”. You can’t, in other words, come over bullishly avant-garde and defiant. Unsurprising. The “Ah now” culture triumphs again.

Green Ink, For more of this kind of logic check out Hammer’s fantastic Rasputin: the Mad Monk with Christopher Lee. Says the bould Rasputin:

When I go to confession I don’t offer God small sins, petty squabbles, jealousies… I offer him sins worth forgiving!

Best ever excuse for boozing and riding all round you.

Stanners, Fergal,

Well obviously the great, weak-minded unwashed are far closer to the rutting beasts of the fields and forests than port-swigging/coke-snorting gentlemen of learning and privilege like ourselves. We can handle it. They, at the drop of a nightie, will be lashing it into each other hysterically, It’s, like, for their own good y’know. Ungrateful bastards.