"Rose Petals and Horse Dumps"

Part 1

The woods were particularly lovely that day. That summer’s day. As Eileen Battersby strolled, contemplatively, through them. She was (today, as everyday) a messy-looking, plaid-shirt-clad woman. The kind of messy-looking, plaid-shirt-clad woman who could service an automobile single-handed in a few hours. Before rewiring an entire house in an evening.

Though the woods were (as previously mentioned) lovely, her mood, on this summer’s day (as she walked through the woods), was sombre. “You know”, she mused, “I can’t imagine that my skills – in the areas of house rewiring and single-evening automobile servicing – will ever compensate, in the relationship stakes, for a lack of physical allure. Libraries of scientific data exist confirming exactly that. How unfair life sometimes is – how rotten!”.

A squirrel dashed past on the path (through the woods) before her, dragging an inflamed penis along the twiggy ground. Nearby, a pigeon rutted the carcass of a dead tree. Overhead a dragonfly masturbated on a bee. Male creatures all, whose chemical response to sexual stimuli (unseen by Eileen, but surely present) was at the core of their various beings.

She shivered (though the woods were lovely that day), pulled her plaid shirt tighter about her, closed her eyes, and focused on the voice penetrating her ears (through the miracle of a portable audio tape player). It was that wonderful (obviously hugely intellectual) voice of all the Harry Potter audio tapes – pouring mellifluously into her cochlea and coating her auditory nerves like a lovely melted Werther’s Original. Yum.

Her eyes fluttered open…and she saw him. Up ahead on the path, shadowed by the o‘erhanging trees. A man? Yes. A dishevelled eccentric man? Yes. A man incapable of changing a plug and given to wearing odd socks? Quite possibly. A man, she estimated, of between five and six foot in height. To her left a hedgehog grunted in sexual ecstasy. And she pressed on.

1. Via Facebook: "LEGAL TENDER CHALLENGE: maybe won't trade joyless boom boom for floral arrangements and chick-flick DVDs but will trade one real dollar for some Eileen Battersby slash. C'mon, you know you want to". [back]

[Today's unlovely slice of hot doggerel is served up (stinking & steaming) by guest-poster, Tuppenceworth stalwart, and occasional fustar.info football correspondent - Fergal Crehan. Take 'er away, FC.]

It is generally the case in writing that if you don't attempt anything too fancy, if you stick to the simple task of putting one word after another in some sort of coherent way, you can't go far wrong. Paramount on one's agenda must be getting the point across. Doing so with a minimum of fuss should be enough to make one's prose, if not exactly good, then certainly not bad either. Bad writing, almost invariably, is writing that thinks it's actually good. It reaches for the stars, and falls far, far short. How else to explain this, from The Sunday Independent's John Drennan:

“As O'Donoghue turned upon Labour matador Eamonn Gilmore — who had plunged the final piccolo between the shoulder blades of our hero…”

There are at least three things wrong with that sentence, but the main one is that a piccolo is a wind instrument. Our scribe probably thought he was doing something a bit classy, adding a touch of Hemmingway-esque Mediterraneana to the philistine pages of the Sindo. Thus does excess of ambition transcend the merely dull, and achieve the authentically bad.

Poetry is so much higher in the firmament than mere journalism, that it inevitably leads to poor writing. Most people just can't write the stuff. Even good poets miss the mark occasionally. But bad poetry is still readily identifiable as poetry. One senses that the poet at least had an idea of what she was trying to do. Occasionally though, one comes across something so bad that one must wonder if the poet had access to actual poetry, or was merely working from memory of a poem glimpsed many years before, and dimly. Had he, in fact, never seen a poem at all? Was he relying on second hand accounts from those better-travelled than he?

William Topaz McGonagall is considered by many to be the worst poet ever. These pages have already paid tribute to him, and to his masterpiece, "The Tay Bridge Disaster". Today, I prefer to look at one of his lesser known pieces, a tribute to his (long-lost) brother poet, Shakespeare.

Immortal! William Shakespeare, there's none can you excel,
You have drawn out your characters remarkably well,
Which is delightful for to see enacted upon the stage
For instance, the love-sick Romeo, or Othello, in a rage;
His writings are a treasure, which the world cannot repay,
He was the greatest poet of the past or of the present day
Also the greatest dramatist, and is worthy of the name,
I'm afraid the world shall never look upon his like again.
His tragedy of Hamlet is moral and sublime,
And for purity of language, nothing can be more fine
For instance, to hear the fair Ophelia making her moan,
At her father's grave, sad and alone….
In his beautiful play, "As You Like It," one passage is very fine,
Just for instance in the forest of Arden, the language is sublime,
Where Orlando speaks of his Rosilind, most lovely and divine,
And no other poet I am sure has written anything more fine;
His language is spoken in the Church and by the Advocate at the bar,
Here and there and everywhere throughout the world afar;
His writings abound with gospel truths, moral and sublime,
And I'm sure in my opinion they are surpassing fine;
In his beautiful tragedy of Othello, one passage is very fine,
Just for instance where Cassio looses his lieutenancy
… By drinking too much wine;
And in grief he exclaims, "Oh! that men should put an
Enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains."
In his great tragedy of Richard the III, one passage is very fine
Where the Duchess of York invokes the aid of the Divine
For to protect her innocent babes from the murderer's uplifted hand,
And smite him powerless, and save her babes, I'm sure 'tis really grand.
Immortal! Bard of Avon, your writings are divine,
And will live in the memories of your admirers until the end of time;
Your plays are read in family circles with wonder and delight,
While seated around the fireside on a cold winter's night.”

"An Address to Shakespeare" manages to suggest at the same time that the author is both familiar with Shakespeare and entirely ignorant of all literature. While he does show some passing acquaintance with certain moments in the Shakespearean oeuvre, he has little to say about any of them except to note that they are “particularly fine”. “Particularly” is an odd choice of word here, given that he is less interested in describing any such moments as in simply enumerating them. The poet having said nothing on what made them fine, we may guess that they have been chosen at random, and used as an occasion for the poem itself. Which would be fine had he used the occasion as a jumping-off point for something ambitious. But the poem is resolutely earth-bound, “I Love Shakespeare”, with McGonagall in the Stuart Maconie role, shunting snippet after snippet with a perfunctory remark.

It is this half-arsedness that is most striking, and ultimately most heroic about this poem. Nothing in there is outrageously bad on its own, apart perhaps from the deadening repetition of the word “fine”, but there's not a single line that couldn't quite easily be removed. To be fair, you couldn't say that about "The Tay Bridge Disaster". Often, even good writers will throw in a line for the sake of a rhyme. But in the "Address", every line seems that way. Indeed, the entire poem is a piece of filler, written without any apparent zest, as if someone had given McGonagall 30 minutes to knock out something about Shakespeare and wouldn't take no for an answer.

Why did he choose that particular scene from Shakespeare? Why write that particular line? Why, in fact, write the poem at all? Some writers are doomed to be in thrall to a muse that cruelly ignores their love. Though talentless, they display at least an affinity for talent. They know the good stuff when they see it. In McGonagall we have a man who, though he devoted his life to poetry, had no understanding of it whatsoever. He wrote hundreds of poems, not one of which ever gave the merest suggestion that he was barking up the right tree, few hinting that any pleasure was taken in their composition. It was as if, having decided he was a poet, he applied himself to it as a job, trudging through his “duties” without relish, like a time-serving civil servant. You could never call him talented, and most days you'd be hard put to say what his function in the office was at all, but his attendance record was perfect.

Anyway, you know all that already – given that your consciousness is (undoubtedly) plugged straight into the scrolling-bar, 24/7, hyperbollix news shite-fest. It's already old. It was old before it happened. If it happened at all. Which it didn't…and did at the same time.

Reason I bring it up is that my immediate reaction, on hearing of it, was: "Viral ad Campaign". Given the apparently genuine panic caused – and the genuine rescue efforts of (hyper)real people – that reaction might seem deeply cynical and paranoid. But that's what living in a world of Total Spectrum Viral Advertising Dominance does to the human mind (or mine at least). The war in Iraq? Viral ad campaign that has yet to reveal its punchline. The mass extinction of the dinosaurs and the mammalian ascent that eventually produced mankind, civilization, and viral advertising itself? Ditto.

Things were rather different back in the damp, gullible, muck-covered, permanent twilight of 1980s Ireland. Back then 98% of all ads were for Triple "A" Golden Maverick. So when the teasing and mysterious words "Big Ed Loves Mona" (and nothing else) popped onto the screens of a pre-viral-ad, pre-internet, pre-most-things nation, the result was hysteria of War of the Worlds proportions. Except not really…though everyone was quite excited and reasonably curious about what it all meant.

I seem to recall it dragging on for some time, with cryptic clues carefully dropped here and there to whet appetites and keep us nattering about it over our nonexistent water-coolers. By the time all was due to be revealed tension had cranked the mystery up to Third Secret of Fatima levels. Whatever it meant, it meant something big. Something huge. Something earth-shattering and apocalyptic.

It was about yogurt. Yogurt. Yogurt called Mona. Disgusting and scarcely edible yogurt called Mona. And Big Ed was someone who liked it. Who liked this yogurt. Yogurt! Something snapped and broke that day. We were dragged from a just-about-modern slumber into the dizzying vortex of postmodernity. By yogurt.

And what of "balloon boy"? Ad for Häagen-Dazs. Or Ben & Jerry's. Truth to be revealed shortly. Keep watching the skies (and CNN).

If so, then consider me hipped up to the nines, as I spent the better part of last Friday afternoon scrolling through reams of eye-destroying microfilm at Limerick City Library (all in the name of “researching" a potential article). Sharing the microfilmy room with me were an elderly lady who offered me a mint (and seemed incredulous and furious when I politely refused) and the ubiquitous smelly, obsessive, local history buff (male, of course) in a Christmas geansai. A less hip environment you'd search forlornly to find.

He (Mr. Local History Fella) also produced a supply of mints, which he duly offered to share. I (defensively and warily) declined again, though by this time my mint-refusing resolve was beginning to waver. Such is the coercive power of peer pressure.

The upshot of this mint-offering/refusing to and fro was that I spent more time on matters of confectionery etiquette than I'd have anticipated and ended up coming away empty-handed. Well, not quite. I did find the below gem. One of 1974′s stand-out moments…if you lived in Limerick.

The man who would, many years later, become a treasured, knighted, national UK institution (and monument to cuddly, ever so slightly naughty, twee wit) was, even 35 years ago, somewhat defensive about his Irish bona fides.

“I WAS born in Limerick. I WAS!!¹

In fairness to Sir. Terrence, I think it's unlikely (unless he imposed paranoid levels of control over his own career) that he dictated the content of his speech bubble to HyperSales' ad-men. Has anyone, I wonder, ever sued creators of a speech bubbled photo for grossly misrepresenting their thoughts and feelings? Private Eye and Phoenix do it all the time in the name of cheap satire. And the front cover of Match! routinely heaves with excited (mildly inflammatory and “dissing") bubbles issuing from footballer's mouth's.

Ronaldo: “I'm better than you, Torres!!"
Torres: “Tu madre! I am totally the best, no?"
Fat Frank Lampard: “You're both wrong, lads, I'm more very good at football than you two!!"²

Not that Wogan would, I don't think, have necessarily been that upset about his Limerickian origins being restated in bubble form. His issue might, instead, have been with the implication that his place of birth was the only reason why anyone would turn out to see him cut the ribbon on (the now long gone) HyperSales. Speaking of which, a bit more microfilmic scrolling revealed the following.

Girls' pipe bands. Miss Limerick. Gold scissors. A throng turning out to bask both in Wogan's celebrity glow and HyperSales' exotic “American" consumer promise. Ah, Limerick of the 70s! How I miss you – kinda.

1. Alright Terry, Chill the fuck out. [back]
2. Seriously, this is only a mild exaggeration of the reality. Check it out. It's hilarious. [back]

A NEW crime of blasphemous libel is to be proposed by the Minister for Justice in an amendment to the Defamation Bill.

After heaving your jaw off the floor, restoring your popped-out eyes to their parent sockets, and unscrambling your brain matrix, you proceed (with growing horror and dread) to read more.

Sound familiar? I hope so. "Picturegate" now appears to have been merely a censorious aperitif for the four-course, slap up meal of governmental cuntitude to come. The throbbing in my temples either indicates the early stages of swine flu, or I'm choking on my own rage. I'm sure I'm not the only one.

Here's more:

Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern proposes to insert a new section into the Defamation Bill, stating: “A person who publishes or utters blasphemous matter shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable upon conviction on indictment to a fine not exceeding €100,000."

“Blasphemous matter" is defined as matter “that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion, thereby causing outrage among a substantial number of the adherents of that religion; and he or she intends, by the publication of the matter concerned, to cause such outrage."

So many questions.

a) What's the difference (legally speaking) between regular (common or garden) abuse and gross abuse? Does the latter involve mickies? Or poo?

b) Aren't the people most likely to be outraged by such "matter" of a type that wander about in an almost perpetual state of outrage anyway? In other words, is a small bit more outrage likely to make any appreciable difference in their lives? And, doesn't semi-permanent outrage actually shore up their sense of self-righteousness (in the face of a world of godless scum)? Blasphemy might actually be doing them good.

c) Isn't one of the (important & legitimate) functions of art & satire to poke "matters held sacred" with a barbed stick? Precisely because such matters are sacred?

d) Isn't it a typically Irish "out" that you're invited to try and duck the charge by saying any offence caused was unintentional? "Eh…sorry 'bout that lads. I didn't mean to upset anyone with my Blu-Tak sculpture of the Virgin Mary puking into a urinal. I'd meant to depict her saving some lovely babies from a fire. I'd drink on me when I made it and…eh…it went a bit wrong".

In the UK you can (as far as I know) argue that yes, the offence caused was intentional, but that the existence/creation of the "matter" constitutes a "public good" (it serves some interest of science, art, learning etc). No such option here – where many of our influential dullards can't even begin to imagine what possible benefit "aberrant", subversive, fringe, obscene, or absurd thoughts could have for a society where a middle-of-the-road (“Ah now!") consensus on almost everything is assumed (or yearned for).

The rage (or swine flu) is growing stronger by the minute, but so is my tiredness (I wrote this “last night" if you see what I mean). Off to bed with me. Send Suzy some of your most blasphemous, durtiest poems (the secret ones you hide in that box under the bed). I smell another postcard project in all this.

Related Post: Pissing on Bishops: 21st Century Obscenity & the State of the Nation.

As stated in my last post, we recently returned from an extended-family holiday in Connemara where, for much of the time, the wind howled deafeningly and the rain fell in buckets poured by a wrathful (and unsympathetic) God. During those evenings when we when we were forced to shelter from such elemental terrors, Cluedo (that game of beatings, stabbings, strangulations and shootings for all the family) provided moderate slices of entertainment.

Being someone who gets easily upset by the processes of change and "updating" (or should that be "updation"? What's the noun?) I did find myself slightly saddened by the transformations the suspects had undergone. Not, I hasten to add, because I automatically cling (like the hidebound and reactionary Col. Mustard) to "the old ways", but rather because I wholeheartedly subscribe to the philosophy – "Don't fuck with good design".

Take Professor Plum for example. Where once he had a memorable air of faintly roguish smugness…

…he's now (or at least he was, see below) lumbered with preposterous academic self-satisfaction and pomposity:

Plus he has a quiff. An orange quiff. And an actual humanoid body. All rendered in a charmless style that leaves little room for ambiguity (a vital quality in a game based on figuring out whodunnit).

The pitch-black backgrounds and (vividly-coloured) long-necked, curvy "plastic" bodies of the original game cards winningly combined elegance and menace. Or, as was the case with the fiery Miss Scarlett, sex and murder.

She may have been little more than a head, but to a young fella starved of sexual stimuli she had a "come hither (and I'll smash your brains in with a lead pipe)" look that was hard to resist.

The new and unimproved Scarlett looks vaguely like an emaciated Catherine Zeta Jones. Angular and cool, where the 1940′s (Betty Grable-esque) version was soft, curvy and volcanic.

The ugliness of the design may partially explain why I no longer find myself as drawn to Miss. S as I once was. Of greater significance, perhaps, is the fact that in the years since I last played Cluedo I've a) had sex, and, b) seen women naked. After such formative life experiences, drawings of board game characters no longer seem quite as erotically charged.

The morning after one of our Cluedo sessions (where, surprise surprise, Scarlett was found to be the murderer) my parents-in-law opened their copy of The Telegraph to discover a coincidence – an article detailing Hasbro's latest "reinvention" of the game. Being the Telegraph, of course, the tone was a tad on the "Is nothing scared?" side – inviting its readers to bemoan the replacement of lead pipe with baseball bat, library with spa, and Professorial Plum with "video-game billionaire" Plum.

One such online reader ("Jane") took up this invitation with indignant gusto:

The launch of an American 'updated' version seems extraordinary. The thought of swapping the bumbling Colonel Mustard with 'an ageing footballer turned pundit' doesn't seem quite right. I dread to think what he will be called; Miss Scarlet swapped for a 'lap dancer' or something even more 'exotic'.

We, as a family, have been using the same board for 4 generations and see no reason to change it to some awful Americanised version. The children have 'The Simpsons' version of Cluedo; it has been played with once as they prefer the PROPER version.

Tally ho! Modern Culture 0, Middle England 1.

Anyhoo, here are the even more rejigged Scarlet (sic), Mustard and Plum:

The Zeta-Jones-ing of Scarlett/Scarlet is complete and with it my childhood love/lust is dead. Dead like a bloated celebrity corpse. In a spa. With a baseball bat rudely jammed up its arse.

While sitting on the U.L. bus this morning, and browsing through the Post, I chanced upon what struck me as a rather curious image (bear in mind I was half-awake and slightly hung over). There was my old primary school "The Model" (An Mhodhscoil) in all its imposing, grey-stoned glory. There, also, was a grinning Willie O'Dea (whom we've met before) squatting in front of it. To Willie's right was a small child dressed as Mario (sporting a plastic gun). To his left was George Hook with a large custard pie.

I goggled, possibly muttered "What the fuck?!", and showed it to Jess. Here's what she/we saw:

Closer inspection, of course, revealed that only Willie was what he appeared to be. "Mario" is actually "Bob the Builder", while his "gun" appears to be a drill (I think). "George Hook" turns out to be none other than Diarmuid Ó Murchú (the school's principal), while his "pie" is a (still amusing) giant, novelty-sized 1 Euro coin. All a bit of a let-down really.

On the plus side the paper featured another photo that reduced us to hysterics. It is both delightfully bland (in a "Local Councillor Unveils Park Bench" kind of way) and unnervingly sinister ("Phantom Businessman Stalks Local Bypass").

As devoted Post readers will no doubt realise, the adjoining story concerns the May opening of the Corbally link road. The strange, spectral figure is Cllr. Kieran Walshe who (you'll be relieved to hear) reassures us that the planned road widening should only affect "a small portion of the grass verge that is not generally used by pedestrians".

One less thing for us all to worry about I'm sure you'll agree.

[tags]Limerick Post, Wille O'Dea, Mario, Custard Pie, PaperRound[/tags]