Streets are uneven

I am short on time, strapped for minutes, hours, seconds. The fuck is that about? Sure isn't Gimme just a apron-stringed housewife who sits around all day, supping lattes with the other yummy mummies, discussing the upcoming SUV demolition derby? Well, yes, as a rule. But this week is different.

Get this folks, this is a scale of sadosity, a pinnacle of pathetic that you would do well to aspire to: I am too busy to bleugh because of bleughing events. I have shit to organize, clothes to wash, training beers to blast. And all to put myself repeatedly in a position where I find myself reminded of those discussions with my mother in law that turn into arguments because she keeps fucking changing sides. To whit, a position of frustration and discomfort.

This most profound remark I have come across in the last couple of days appeared on the Irish Blog Awards website where some guy called Rowan, when faced with the question 'So who do you want to meet at the Blog Awards?' opined:

No one.

Isn't that the whole point of blogging?

A fucking men is what I say to that. Testify, brother.

I do this shit so that I don't have to talk to people, I do this shit so that I might speak loudly, angrily and without interruption, I do this shit so that I can edit myself. Because as some of you may soon I find out, I desperately, bitterly need an editor. When I was 19 I accidentally called a girl whom I really, really fancied and who, I venture to suggest, really, really fancied me, a dog. How does one call someone a dog by accident? I lack the time to elaborate, but like so much disappointment and embarrassment in my life it was all the fault of the Irish language.

So if, over the coming days, I call you a dog, or a cunt or an opinianted, two-faced wind-up merchant stalker fuckwit who is using dyslexia as an excuse to justify a lack of willingness to do everybody else the common courtesy of enabling Firefox's internal spell checker, then it's almost certainly an accident. Except for that last one. That's on purpose.

And watch out for the flailing. I flail an awful lot when I'm excited, tense, off my face on drugs or just chatting in a relaxed manner. Keep your hands on your drinks at all times when in the presence of Gimme. Don't be one of those many ladies who will inevitably have pints of Guinness emptied all over their pretty going out dresses. Don't be one of those lads who spends the evening looking like they have just pissed themselves. You have been warned and I will not be held responsible.

Barring any further all out family trauma that must immediately be shared with the world, that's me for the week. I may vomit something out on Sunday, and I may post too, but I leave for Spain on Monday and I lack belief in V's ability to provide me with a stable connection. So enjoy the awards if you're going (keep the flattery thing in mind) and bask in the serentity of your first ever me free week. First ever if you're counting from July. And why would you do otherwise?

Night, night, chowheads.

I should never have let you out tonight

I am a plank, a muppet, a twit. But you knew that. It's why you love me. I'd rather you loved me for my smouldering good looks and my breathtaking wit but these days I'll take whatever's going. Laughter at me is still laughter in my direction.

Allow me to pose a question. If one was going to pick a profession from which to pluck a personage to almost kill to a pulp in one's first major driving idiotically related incident which profession should one chose? Accountancy? The performing arts? Politics? These all seem to me to be worthy candidates. How about you folks? Any pet peeves, professionally speaking?

I drop Common Law off at Connolly. I'm stopped like a sick bird. Illegally. We have just passed two traffic cops on motorcycles. CHiPs, essentially. Common Law is tangled up in her many musical cords. The 'I am unlawfully parked' stick up my ass is tickling my tonsils. We do goodbye, mwah, mwah. She's out, I signal, and put Purple Danger in gear.

I don't think I've mentioned that our car is called Purple Danger. My brother in law named it that because it's purple and I'm the only person who drives it.

I check my rear view mirror. Lights, many lights. I check my wing mirror, same gig. I look over my shoulder, nothing coming. And at this point I should probably do some more mirror checking. I don't. I pull out.

A motorbike swerves violently to miss me. Inches, folks, mere inches. You know what comes next, don't you? That's right, Officer Poncherello, his heart beating fast from his narrow brush with death, waves me over. I pull in. I have a quick cry. I have time for a lengthy cry, as Poncho is taking his time with the dismounting, the glaring and the notebook reaching, but I keep it quick. I reach for my licence.

Poncho approaches. In my slight panic and intense misery I can't help but completely fail to notice that my foot is still on the clutch and that I am still in gear. I roll down the window to greet Poncho. I take my foot off the clutch. The car leaps forward. This is not going well.

Officer Poncherello does his thing. He writes stuff down, he wanders around the car. He peers at all those bits of paper I have affixed to my windscreen. He looks at my provisional licence. The provisional licence which requires me to have a licenced driver with me at all times, even when I'm pooping. About ten minutes later he comes back to my window.

If I was him folks, I'd have whipped out the cuffs and gotten all Rodney King on my ass. I don't know why, I really don't know why, but he lets me off. Really, I still don't why. Doesn't he have a quota to fill? I've almost fucking killed him. What is he thinking? When it becomes clear that I've gotten away with it, it's all that I can to do to not attempt to tearfully embrace him through the car window.

This plank, this muppet, this twit, drives carefully to work.

Long nights allow me to feel

So I broke early and had my first drink in five weeks on Friday. Those two cans of Guinness that have been sitting chuckling to themselves in the fridge, thinking they were all safe for another week, got rudely awakened and crudely digested. Stupid way to start back, as Guinness in a can is all kinds of manky, but I broke and they were near.

I was pissed after half a glass, giggling goofily to myself at the news on the telly, just like my first drink back when Iwas fourteen. What can I tell you? I like the news. And drinking, I can confirm, rocks. If only those giggly feelings lasted.

I woke up on Saturday morning not hungover, but grumpy, irritable. Fine, fuck you. Grumpier, more irritable. Everything constantly pissing me off, instead of most things regularly pissing me off. But this was nothing that wasn't simply solved by my drinking an entire bottle of very, very tasty white wine on Saturday night. If you're going to fall off the wagon, the thing to do is fuck yourself face first into the mud and and just fucking lie there, gurgling. Rushing to catch back up with the wagon is a ridiculous fucking plan to be avoided at all costs.

Thing is, while I know I have a whole lot of drinking to do over the coming fortnight what with random stranger meet ups, award shows, and Spain, I really feel that after that I should go right the fuck back to a seriously minimized drinking schedule. I was pissing it up big style pre-Christmas and it was turning me into a fat, unmotivated fucker. Fine again, cunts. A fatter, more unmotivated fucker.

Yes, I know that I've been as boring as hurling, as dull as an illiterate troll, but I have been fitter, happier, more productive. Getting on better with my...I'll stop.

You know what really does make me want to kick the booze forever and embrace the tedious teetotaller within? It's how resentful and nervous it made everyone else. People fucking hated that I wasn't drinking and they're dancing in the streets now that I've started again. And this because just about everyone I know is a demon, if social, drinker. What in many other countries (I'm looking at you Canada, staring at you France) would be considered chronic alcoholism is pretty much de rigeur here in the land of the corruptly drunk and any variation from that party line is at the very least frowned upon. Oh yes, it is. You've all been fucking frowning and you know it.

I'm off to have a quick afternoon cocktail to ease me through to the evening. Cheers, big ears.

There was a cat who really was gone

Because of the beard, because of the dancing, because it's the greatest song ever written. That's fucking why.

She don't lie, she don't lie, she don't lie

This huge fucking pink 'The party's over' poster campaign is pissing me off. The gist? Cocaine is bad for you. Mix it with alcohol and it's even worse. It'll kill you dead, it will. Dead, dead, dead. No life for you Mr and Mrs Sniffer, the party's over.

To which party does this waste of time, money and advertising space refer? Would it be the made up party where all the middle class people top off their evenings of clams, Campari and idle political chit-chat with tasteful ceramic bowls full of coke in the place of wafer-thin minties? Or perhaps we should consider the angel Katy French speedball party? That can't be over, can it?

It really is a fucking ridiculous tag line to be employing. The use of the word 'party' heavily suggesting that the Columbian marching powder is fucking deadly as well as being fucking deadly. (The last sentence is deliberately constructed to confuse the fuck out of the non-Irish. You could call me xenophobic if only I didn't hate Irish people so much.) The party is over, it's time for the blindingly pink hangover of our pointless poster campaign.

The bus stop I fly past on Rosie most evenings also includes the information that 'Mixing cocaine and alcohol makes you 24 times more likely to have a heart attack.'

Right. I'm 33. I don't smoke cigarettes. There is no history of heart disease in my family. I am super fucking fit. Not to tempt fate or anything, he says tempting fate and everything, the chances of me having a heart attack are so close to zero that the multiplication of this figure by 24 is still going to give me a really fucking small number. I come a whole lot closer to 135th trimester termination every time I climb on my bike and plough my way through town in my favoured death wish manner. So you guys are suggesting I get with the hoovering, right?

And let's just pretend for two seconds that I am an overweight smelly smoker, whose entire family have recently cardiacally croaked it. All I have to do is have a Coke with my coke and I'll be fine, right? Sure, then I can drive everyone home too!

Don't get me wrong, folks, Charlie ain't my drug of choice. I'm with Kweli when he says 'more marijuana less coke'. Hell, it's not even my Class A of choice, but this absurd bombardment of bills is so ill-thought out, badly constructed and just plain ugly that the chances of it having even the most superficial effect on regular users of cocaine are about as high as my having a heart attack from typing too quickly.

And I have no doubt that these shooting pains in my left arm are just delayed cramp from this morning's Bodypump.

It would be, it would be so nice

I swear to fuck if this air traffic controller shit affects my going to Spain in the slightest cunting way I will be going postal. Oh so postal I will fucking go.

You know when the last time I was away from home without the children was? Never, that's when it was, fucking never.

When Riker was small, smaller, smallest, long before we cooked ourselves up a Data, at a time so far in the past that it may as well be never, I went on a severely debauched Florida binge for the 30th birthday of a dear friend. And let me tell you, folks, there was not a bit of bauch in the greater Miami area by the time we got finished.

A touch of back story. When we were both students, I would, from time to time, lend this jolly ginger cynic his bus fare home from my place following a weekend of mindless dope smoking, giggling, and table tennis. No biggie, this loan, despite the fact that I am a tight cunt. But I distinctly remember, and I distinctly remember very little, his promising to me one bright, sunny Sunday morning outside of the Leeson Lounge, that he would get me back when he was rich. Why, I wonder, do I remember this? That's right, I remember because I am a tight cunt.

But folks, the dream came true. In the blink of an eye, as I kept up the actorly pretence, he did indeed become very rich. And then he flew me to Miami for his birthday.

What a guy. What a fucking week. Was it a week? Help me out, readers who were there. It felt like a day, it felt like a month. It was my first real vacation from the bondage of fatherhood and while I returned to Dublin a complete physical wreck and emotional basket case, it was a truly cathartic and cleansing experience.

Since then, not a fucking thing.

On Monday, March 3 I am due to fly to Spain, to V, for what I expect will be a slightly more grown up experience involving less accidental ingestion of entire bags of, never mind, and more football. We're going to catch Real and Roma, hang out in his culturally and cathedrally rich home of Salamanca. I will ingest tapas and drink beer moderately, from sunrise to sunset.

And so help me Jebus, if any cunt tries to take this away from me, I will embrace the madness that has been standing at the bar of my life for the last three weeks, fluttering her eyelashes and being all open in her body language. I hate to publish idle threats for all to read and point to when I fail to carry them out so I'll go the other way, and stick with a more realistic line.

Someone will die if I don't go to Spain.

My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating

Oh Jesus, but there's been much too much family mush around this place of late. Gallant nag knight riding against the all-powerful force of the psychotic teenager with a prison warden father and no previous convictions. Love, love and more love for my perfectly imperfect children.

Here ends that shit. Yet another pair of knickers crapped in plus hysterical tears wept over a simple room-tidying request have pushed me to a less familial but more familiar perpsective, the one where I realize that if it wasn't for these girls, this triumvirate of trollops, this trio of tramps, I would now be in a hotel room somewhere in Los Angeles, sniffing cocaine off of Drew Barrymore's breasts while Jennifer Connelly and Carrie Moss pillow-fight over who gets to make me a sandwich.

Although I have no actual evidence to support this contention, contend I will that I was on the brink of stardom when I was forced by unplanned pregnancy to return, cap in hand, to the soap which I had melodramatically quit only a year before.

'Please take me back,' I whined. 'My wife is having a baby.'

'Now just a cotton pickin' minute, buddyboy, I thought you had fucked off to pursue your higher calling of playing every type of queer in every theatre in the land? City queers, country queers, straight queers, right? The fuck happened? That shit dry up? No more takers for your increasingly fat, wriggling, wiggling ass?'

'No, Master.'

'I like your subservience. How would you like to own a cow and make cheese?'

'Oh, very, very much Master.'

'Then it shall be so. But you must promise to never again dream of diginity, artistic satisfaction or Barrymore tit coke. Will you promise that to the Great Beast that is Radio Telefis Eireann?'

'Yes, oh yes, Great Beast! I promise! I promise!'

'Oh and just one more thing...'

'Yes, Master, Great Beast? Great Master Beast?'

'If, in two years time you receive a phone call at 7.30 in the morning asking you to come to a meeting with us, and you are unable to come because of the short notice and your pussy-whipped minding of the baby and you're still at the age of 27 loser lack of a car, and you
then hear on the 9 o'clock news that you have lost your job and with it your last remaining vestiges of self respect, you won't come complaining to us now will you?'

'Oh no, Master, never. I would never ever do that.'

'Very well. Take this script, and resume your silage spouting.'

'Oh thank you, thank you so much, Master.'

'You're welcome. Enjoy the third panty shit of the day.'

'Pardon, Beast Master?'

'Oh nothing. Har, har, har.'

Sun is in the sky, oh why, oh why, would I wanna be anywhere else?

Me and The Bridge Crew were in a newsagent yesterday buying Friday treats. They get a magazine and an item of sweetiness each. Data, at all of three, is set in her ways to the point where any suggestion of deviation from Kinder Egg and Dora Weekly causes her to wet herself. No humming and hawing with that girl.

Riker, however, was winging for the first issue of a big fuck off Hannah Montana periodical. You know the kind, the first one is two euro, a fucking tenner thereafter. I explained this concept and said it wasn't going to happen. Stoical disappointment, onward movement to High School Musical stickers. At this point one of those older women who seem to believe that they are a part of every conversation going on within ten feet of their intrusive selves, piped up thusly:

'Oh, I remember that. I bought the first issue of one of those for my son who is a pilot when he was seven and I was still buying them when he was seventeen...'

Can anybody spot the slightly redundant piece of information in the above declaration? Just so you know, she did not go on to say that the magazine in question was 'Plane and Pilot Magazine'. No, she just wanted me to know that her son was a pilot and therefore fucking great, I guess. I hate that shit. I don't give a fuck how great other people's children are and his pilotness does not rule out his being a wife-beater or pederast. Or a wife-beater and pederast. I told her that too. I told her with my eyes. And trust me, she got it.

All which is my way of saying that despite it being Riker's birthday today (nine years? I've been doing this for nine years?) I am not going to do a big long bit about how fucking fantastic she is. She is though. She's amazing. She's a nice person. She's kind generous and patient and so very, very witty. Even if she isn't a bus driver. Pilot, I mean pilot.

I'll stop now, if you promise to go and read this instead.

Happy birthday, best thing that ever happened to me.

While the world is asleep, you can look at it and weep

You know what? I think I get that whole Baron Von Munchhausen dealio. Not the standard one where you make yourself sick for attention. Of course I get that one. I'm fucking doing it right now.

Did I that mention I have a cold? I do. A really bad cold too. My immune system is clearly shot. I feel like shit, thanks for asking. Yes, I would like you to come over and tell me to go to bed and bring me stuff. Treats, like. Compatible with a cold treats. Oh and attention. Don't forget the attention.

But the other kind, the by proxy Munchback thingy, I think I get that too. Now there are many who will say that it's an horrific mental disorder that leads to unspeakable unhappiness for the poor children affected. And they might have a point. But I'm thinking that it may have more to do with just getting a bit of peace and quiet.

Data was unwell all day yesterday and, as I mentioned, spent the day dozing under a duvet with a steady diet of Dora dross. The whirlwind of tears, laughter and destruction passed over us and at the end of the day there was no fire-stormed back room to painfully and painstakingly put back together. And my little monster was so darling in her dozing, so sweet in her sweatiness.

She's back to normal this morning. This little lady has eaten a day's worth of Rice Krispies, Cheese Dippers and bananas in the two hours that she's been up and once again every journey, however short, is being taken at a hop, skip and jump. Needless to say the house is fucking trashed.

And while I am relieved re the trashing and happy about the hopping, I believe that I can see from where these Baron boys are coming. Of course if she's sick all the time Data will never go to playschool and I'll never get any fucking break so I suppose I best postpone my paternal poisoning for the present.

Oh well.

People will see me and cry

That guy, he's the oldest guy in the world. Looks like a grumpy fuck, huh? I am completely not fucking surprised. I'm 34 and I'm as grumpy as fuck too. I reckon it can only get worse, my grumpiness.

But such fucking small portions though, right? That's what the grand old age of 112 set me to thinking. That's fucking it? That's as long as I can possibly hope to live? And given my shitty genes and my degenerative disease, I'll be lucky if I get much more than half of that. This is the particularly pissy part of being a complete fuck you, no bet-hedging, if there is a god he can go fuck himself atheist. To be clear, I'm not one of those 'I'm not religious but I'm spiritual' cunts. I don't think there's any kind of higher force, I don't believe we'll all move to an unimaginable and fluffy clouded plain when we die, really, really soon. I think this is fucking it, it's shit and we be living with it. That's just the way it fucking is.

But oh, such very, very small portions.

The whole atheism thing is supposed to make you live your life to the full, right? But what if you can't? What if you can't even go to the shop to begin you life full living because one of your children is sick and unable to do anything but gaze wistfully at Dora dvds? What if your concept of living life to the full includes a breakfast doobie with an espresso Causcasian on the side? And your actual life is one of parenting and physical fitness role-modelling?

And while we're here, what if the sick child raises her head from her pillow and croaks something and you can't hear over the Dora shriek and you go over and sit close to her and say 'What is it, sweetie?' and again she croaks but this time you understand her and she is saying 'I like our home'? What then?

Sixty, seventy years of moments like that will not suffice. If this really is halfway then it's not enough. I want more. I want more than 112 too. I want to live forever. And not in the shitty 'Fame' way. In the Lazarus Long, being an endlessly boring and opinionated hypocrite, actually living for an infinite amount of time way.

This is what I want today. Give it to me.

Central to my thoughts on St Valentine's Day in order of their proximity to the medial line

I have a bitten lip that I don't remember biting
And I have a drooping eye
I have a child whose ill I do not recall inviting
And I have a love for you

Man's a fiddle that life plays on

Common Law got in late last night, and will do for the next three months or so. First preview tomorrow evening. Like the good, attentive, lawless spouse that I am, I had fallen asleep. I'm pretty sure that I was snoring supportively though. The fuck do you people want from me?

Discussion of yesterday's events took place this morning.

'So, did you read the bleugh? You know what the situation is?'

'I think so. You're freaking out and everyone is encouraging you, is that it?'

'In a nutshell.'

And someone will eat the skin that he sheds

Four posts in a day. I'm that fucked off and frustrated. It's the powerlessness that has me calling the police, calling lawyers, calling victim support groups, writing pointless, angry posts. I bet every fucking reader cunt is going 'Jesus, it's all about him, isn't it? How the fuck is Common Law? Christ, but what a prick.'

I don't fucking care. You want niceness, you're in the wrong place. I can see how you might have gotten all confused and befuddled and found yourselves flailing about in a pit of misunderstanding, a prison of belief in the nice guyness of Gimme. It's the lack of booze, folks, it fucked me all up. But that ends here.

I may not be quitting the bleugh, I may not be quitting not drinking, but I'm quitting being nice. Fucking fuck that for a game of fucking soldiers. No more blunderbuss comment answering, only the select and brilliant few will be deemed worthy. This is no longer a fucking conversation, this is a howl of pain and you can listen or fucking not, I don't give a fuck.

I'm angry, I'm tired, I'm hungry, I'm sick. I have fallen behind in both classes and housework, Data has taken up permanent residence on the bold step and I can't be near Common Law to hold her and talk to her and make sure that she's ok.

So go on, fuck off, nothing more to see here today.

Lady Justice Has Been Raped

I'm going for the late, late Lenny Bruce era vibe here, ranting boringly and humourlessly about legal nastities while my audience boo and heckle.

So it turns out that I am paranoid and just plain wrong. The Gardaí are legally obliged to move the cunt on to the National Juvenile Office for consideration for the Juvenile Diversion Programme. Go take a look at that, folks, it's a laugh a fucking minute. And the word on the street is that this bitch, this beast, being a first time offender, is a dead cert for acceptance on to the progamme. Paddy Power closed the book once they heard about the prison officer bit.

This is a worthwhile and wonderful scheme. It gives tearaway kids who break the law a second chance. They have an opportunity to begin their adult lives with a clean slate. I'm told it has a high success rate. And call me Father Spencer Tracey of Boys Town, but I'm all for this. Kids can be wild, kids do stupid things. They ought to get a second bite at the cherry.

For petty crime.

For vandalism say. For drunk and disorderly. For shoplifting. Hey, I was a shoplifter. A pretty fucking serious shoplifter. Easons on O'Connell Street was down some serious stock when I was a twelve year old. I got caught, I got let off. I have no criminal record. Phewy. Close one.

What I didn't do was plan to corner a defenceless woman with a gang of mates and brutally beat her for my own entertainment. This is not petty. This is petty like I am currently calm and reasoned. This is a disgusting crime and deserves punishment. Suspend the fuck out of the sentence, I don't fucking care. But this namby pamby one off chat with a guidance counsellor is not doing it for me. Let's have the bitch in court.

a mechanism for bringing the offender and the injured party together so that the injured party has an opportunity to say how the crime affected him/her and it poses a new challenge to the offender in that he/she must now confront and deal with the harm caused.

I would postulate that the offender was confronting and dealing with the harm caused as threw her third, her fourth, her fifth punch. I suspect she was dealing with it as she watched the video and laughed before she was picked up by the guards. And I believe that this level of premeditation and meaningful remorse to be mutually exclusive.

Common Law may not want revenge. Society may not want revenge. But to get all Robert Carlyle in Cracker on your sorry asses, I do, I want revenge.

And I'm not going to get it.

Rolls of red tape seal your lips

I suspect that I'll be using lyrics from that song for quite some time to come.

The animal who beat up my girlfriend in a premeditated, unprovoked, vicious attack is sixteen, not fourteen. She has no previous convictions. The gardaí claim that due to new legislation introduced last year these two pieces of information mean that they are not allowed to charge this fucking bitch, that she must go through a 'Juvenile liaison scheme'. No charges. No court appearance. No criminal record. A premeditated, unprovoked, vicious attack. No charges. No court appearance. No criminal record. A juvenile liaison scheme.

I think this cunt needs to liaise with a fucking baseball bat.

And this all sounds to me like so much bullshit.

Did I mention that this thug, this little bag of scum's father is a prison officer in Mountjoy? Did I mention that?

That, of course, has fuck all to do with this bullshit Store Street are feeding me over the last two days. Sweet like candy fuck all to do with it.

Again I am genuinely nauseous with rage. But I await a call back from someone who is better versed in the thrills and spills of the criminal justice system. You can expect updates.

I walk through walls, I float down the Liffey

Common Law came across an email.

'So you think I'm in denial?'

'That's where I was going with that big river in Egypt gag, yes...'

'What is it that you think that I'm denying, exactly?'

'No, you're right, denial is the wrong word.'

'So what's the right word?'

'I don't know. The fuck am I, a thesaurus? I just think that you're taking all your rage, shame, misery, pain and fear, rolling them all into one massive bomb belt of volatile darkness which is now set to detonate spectacularly some time in the near future, completely fucking you up and maiming those around you with its shrapnel of hate.'

'So just another day, then.'

Those who died are justified, for wearing the badge, they're the chosen whites

What banal bollox do you fucking hyenas want to hear about today? Want to know what I ate? Wish to know what I drank? Dying to discover what kind of exercise I did? Hoping to hear how I nearly fucking died again because a 'yield' sign means 'yield only to cars' in the minds of mototrists?

I hate this shit. I don't want to do it any more. It's so wanky and unsatisfying and pointless. It's the billions of wasted sperm spilling unto the crusty gym sock of the internet. It's all so self-reverential and asinine and such a creepy, cheap excuse to use big words or put similar sounding words together. I might as well do a fucking crossword or a sudoku puzzle.

And in light of recent events I'd rather be folding clothes, listening to Rage Against the Machine at eviction volume than trying to be witty or bitter or even angry.

If I think I'm so talented and funny and literate, why don't I do it properly, try to write something real? Because I'm a useless fucking lazy cunt is why. A useless fucking lazy cunt.

So I quit.

For now. No more posts in the foreseeable future. That's right, you can fucking forget about seeing any updates on this site until, at the absolute earliest, this evening.

When one spends all one's time getting one's knickers ina twist about refuse collection and the insane randomness of Irish language spellings, one forgets just what a fucked up, sickening emotion genuine rage really is. Sick is what I feel mostly, sick and powerless and like going out and extracting sticky, sickly, crunching retribution from the next little scumbag in a tracksuit who has the misfortune to cross my path . And here's some equal opportunity brutality for you: my inner Judge Dredd, my exterior Laurence Powell, would both be perfectly happy if said scumbag happened to be a girl.

Common Law was walking up Capel Street last night with two friends when they were attacked by a gang of teenagers, nearly all female. She was thrown against a car, punched in the face, kicked, beaten. Not for money, no. For footage. The whole thing was being videoed on a phone.

She's not badly hurt. But she has a black eye and looks damaged, like she's been beaten up. And naturally she's very shaken.

Tell you what, I'm going to save the in-depth analysis of the fuckedupness of our society, the rambling discourse on how exactly this affects me and my feelings, the purple prose on my lost liberalness and my new MIchael McDowell fanclub membership and just let this motherfucker sit there, like the nauseating ball of fury in my stomach.

The wind through your bones is all that remains

Hey, eight year old! You're going to fucking die! Die, die die! Dirt in the motherfucking ground, that's you , kiddo!

My Riker.

Let's hold up there one minute. You think I maybe shouldn't refer to the Bridge Crew as 'my Riker' and 'my Data'? Is it a little creepy? Like I own them? Like they're my all singing, all dancing, action accessories? Look at the girls! They match my beard!

Fuck you, they are mine, I made them with my man juice and I'll refer to them however I fucking like.

Let's move on.

My Riker, she's all about the laconic these days. She's so laid back it's like she's sneaking out the back and making up for my dope dip by chuffin' it up herself. Even when I'm giving birth to puppies in relation to the inexplicable spelling of the word 'scriosáin' she's just sits there with a wry smile, her entire being baldly berating me with a 'Daddy, it's no biggie.'

At first,I thought it was just dirt on her face. She's kind of grubby, my Riker. She's no Pigpen, she washes regularly, bathes every night, but she's just about always got some smudge of paint, or marker or engine oil in or around her nosal area.

But then it came to me.

'Did you get ashes at school?'

She's doing her maths, she does not look up.

'Mmm.'

'You did?'

'Yup.'

'Really?'

She sighs. She knows what's coming.

'Yes'.

'Who did this to you?' My tone suggests that the daub of ashes on my child's forehead is akin to female circumcision.

'Sadhbh's mum.'

'And were you obliged to have this done?'

'What does 'obliged' mean?'

'Did you have to have it done?'

'Umm, I think they said you didn't if you didn't want to but nobody didn't want to.'

'And did they tell you why this was happening?'

'What?'

'Do you know why they put ashes on your head?'

'Uh, Sadhbh's mum started to say stuff about death but Miss Smyth stopped her.'

'As well she might.'

'What?'

'Nothing.'

I thought you had to be a priest to do this kind of shit. Isn't it a sacrament? I guess they're outsourcing now to crazy religious freak mothers like they did with the stale wafer bit.

The fuck do I care anyway? I care because I believe that there is something intrinsically wrong about putting ashes in the shape of a cross on the forehead of an eight year old and telling her that she's going to die. Sure, I'm big into the honesty hoopla and I'm happy to discuss death with the Bridge Crew, but on my own terms and with some level of sensitivity.

It's such a load of hypocritical bollox anyway. Because while 'ashes to ashes' is completely correct, nail on the fucking head catholic church, that's not what you're saying is it? Because if we're good and we molest children and let people die of Aids then we get to go up to Bespin and hang with the bearded guy and all the fairies. And if we're bad, and enjoy sex and don't hate women, then it's the lake of fire and the pitchfork up yer bum.

So why don't you change it the fuck up, freakazoids and put Nutella on their heads as you intone 'ashes to fairies (or eternal burning), dust to Cloud City (or a pitchfork in the ass)'.

I truly believe that they should be asking permission before they pull this shit on my child. Riker, though, truly believes that I should chill the fuck out. She may have a point.

She was a short order pastry chef

Two things from the top of yesterday's Irish Times tv page. I don't watch television, but I read the tv page religiously.

Science Friction.

Liz Bonin presents a new four-part series looking at the point at which science and society collide.

Oh, for the love of fuck. Watch out, you're about to collide with science. Seriously, foks, better fucking duck.

When science and society collide. Heads up RTE executives, that's every fucking where. That's every fucking time. That's every fucking thing. What we need is for the useless cunt who went with this pitch to have the science surrounding him withdrawn. Science like oxygen. And gravity. Look up everyone and wave bye bye to the nice blue man who isn't colliding with science...

A Liz Bonin pout does not a documentary make.

Horizon. Is Alcohol Worse Than Ecstasy?

A team of scientist analysing the effects of 20 of the most widely drugs used have come to the unexpected conclusion that unclassified drugs such as alcohol, tobacco and solvents are more dangerous than Ecstasy, 4-MTA and LSD.

Well, stab me in the face and call me Sebastian, who'd have fucking thunk it, eh? What with all the nice drunk people getting in fights and glassing each other and falling over and breaking their ankles, ahem, and all the evil doers taking E and acid and staring into space and hugging each other, who the fuck would have fucking thunk it?

Unexpected just doesn't cover it.

And can someone tell me what 4-MTA is? It sounds fucking great. MmmmTA! Mmmm!

I watched neither of these televisual treats as I was in work for the alcohol one and I thought that I had looked at enough fat people already (the first Science Friction was on the topic of obesity) when I finally got in.

Contributions from those who actually saw either of these shows will be, if not deleted, then at least extremely unwelcome.

Walkin' among our people there's someone who's straight and strong

Ooh, ooh, ooh!

Super Tuesday!

Thuper Thuethday!

Who's it gonna be?

Romney or McCain?

Clinton or Obama?

Do you fucking care?

Would you rather talk about football?

Or Britney?

Tough shit, folks, Thuper Thuethday it is.

You know why I love going down the whole politics/current affairs route? Because I know fuck all about it. For Gimme, this route is not Clontarf to Dartry but Gondang to Montong Fal. There is something most liberating in opining agressively on a subject that allows one to demonstrate the depth of one's ignorance.

So McCain is getting the Republican one, right? That's what a little superficial reading is telling me. And this is good. Because he can't possibly be as much as a fuck up as Shrub and he is also not Romney. I distrust a man who is named after baseball equipment. Don't get me wrong, like all good, God-fearing Americans, I love my baseball, but there's a time and place for the word 'mitt' and it's just not before the President's surname. Also, Romney appears to be a crazy Old Testament sympathiser who believes in aliens. So McCain to win as the lesser of the evils.

Ah, but the other side. This where I get all confused. I mean they both have so many bad points. She's a woman and he's a darkie, for fuck's sake. I'm only kidding. Or I am? No, I am.

Search as I might, I am unable to find a concrete policy for which Obama stands. And so my head says Hillary. She's experienced, I gather that she does have policy or two, on healthcare even, and truth be told, she would be a woman President. I don't know what, but I'm pretty sure that this means something.

But my heart, and my loins, cry 'Barrack'. He just sexier, right? He talk nicer. He make me well up a little when he speak of change and...change and well, change. Heeee's a changer.

I'm going to get off the fence here, folks and plump for Clinton. Because I think she's going to win and I like to be on the winning side.

Like I say, I know fuck all about politics. But you probably got that from my incisive analysis.

And every time I scratch my nails down someone else's back I hope you feel it

It's the sick fucking joke hour, with your host Gimme.

Q. What's blue and sits in the corner?
A. A baby with a plastic bag on its head.


Q. Why did Mary fall off the swing?
A. Because she had no arms.


Q. Why does John Gormley believe Bertie Ahern to be tax compliant?
A. Because Bertie says so.

Step on a steam train, step out of the driving rain

So the running has ground to a fucking halt. And it is a halt of my fault. Too much too soon as fucking ever, but the too much was a not much choice in the matter, spur of the moment, moment.

I left the time too tight. I needed to be in work for 8, Common Law got in at 7. I lingered too long to sort out music, to kiss the Bridge Crew goodnight, to toss about trivialities. Thirty-five minutes later, bedraggled, betighted and already knock knock knocking on lactate threshold's door, I watched as a Luas pulled out in front of my eyes at Stephen's Green.

It's 7.45. Takes ten minutes on the tram plus a three minute jog. Could I run there in fifteen? Probably, but it would be tough, long term tough after eight k at a fair clip already and jesus, I'm only just back...

But strangely this doesn't even occur to me. I just think, I'll catch the fucker at Harcourt Street. So I pick it the fuck up.

You want distances? You want speeds? I have no fucking clue. Louie gets stopped at the first lights. I fly by. I don't know distances but I can I remember how to pace myself for this kind of effort. Lactate threshold can go fuck itself. This baby is a VO2 Maximum. The kind of effort that a well conditioned athlete can hold for up to 4 minutes. I am a well conditioned athlete.

I am maybe three quarters of the way up Harcourt Street when the cunt catches me. And Louie is not going to tuck in behind me and recover. No, he fucking powers past, all three long carriages gone in a flash. I need to accelerate or I'm fucked. I have a deeply ingrained fear of being late. If I don't catch this now there is no fucking way that I will be able to get to work on time. I just won't have it in me. So I accelerate.

This hurts. How this hurts. This hurts everywhere. It hurts my legs. my arms, my shoulders, the fucking tip of my ears it hurts. And it hurts my lungs. But my lungs can take it. My lungs know this pain from spin. They'll do this shit.

They do this shit. I'm completely all out, I'm digging deeper than I've dug for years and then I catch it. I'm trying not to collapse into the arms of the crowd, trying not to pant on the populace. And my breath comes back quick enough. My lungs recover fast.

Oh, but what have I done?

My lungs, they know this shit, my legs, they've forgotten. Completely different set of muscle fibres to the bike. Muscle fibres now stressed to the absolute limit with barely a weeks worth of training.

I tried to run four days later and was unable to get above an old man shuffle. No injury per se. Equally agony in both ankles, both knees, both hips. I'll go again in two weeks, I'm not worried, I'll be fine.

No, I'm not worried. But I am a stupendous dumbass.

I wear your secret, Josephina

I got my badges. How fucking cool am I?

If you wish to be cool like Gimme then you need to go here and fork out five, I don't know, guineas or ringgits, or something. Some weird-ass non-euro/dollar currency.

You won't be as cool as me, but at least you'll be trying.

I'm walking through the desert

Oh, I really, really want a beer. I really, really do. Are you getting my drift here, are you catching my wave? This no booze gig is old, old, old. It's been twenty years since I've gone this long without a drink and it's fucking me up big style. I want a fucking beer.

Ooooh, but your skin! It must be all glowy and healthy and lovely and shit!

The fuck would I know? I've got a fucking beard on the bottom half of my face and a baseball hat pulled down to my eyebrows on top. Yes, this skin on my massive conk is all glowy and healthy and lovely and shit, and is thus drawing attention to the gargantuanosity of said conk. Yes, I said conk.

Ooooh, but I bet you're sleeping better! And you feel all perky, right? And you're happier, yes?

Happy, schmappy. Perky, schmerky. And if by sleeping better you mean am I dreaming like a normal person and waking up vaguely refreshed, then yes, fine, I am. But the fucking dreams. Ugh. You folks know I can't take the dreams. Fucking or otherwise. Actual fucking dreams, that is, dreams of fucking, are the worst of all because, perhaps as I'm just not thirteen any more, they never reach a, shall we say, conclusion.

And what a pain in the goolies that is.

So I've dropped a few pounds, great. I have four of my six packs back, woo jaysus hoo. But you'd have to look really closely to see this, as I have a tummy that is even hairier than my face. The sexy striations of my erector spinae are also masked by what I affectionately refer to as my back pubes and so...

And so why the fuck don't I have a drink? An utty butty tipple-tee-too? It's been three weeks, like.

There are two Erdinger (mmmm) and two cans of Guinness (yucky but alcoholy) in the fridge. There is also at least enough vodka for a vodka tonic. Common Law is out for the evening, meaning I wouldn't have to share. Data has not napped and so will be out like a light by eight. And while I have plenty of work to do tomorrow, and activities to taxi tots to and playground to play in it's not like I'll have to actually speak to anyone, and so a mild hangover would work just fine, thank you very much.

But I won't. I don't fucking know why either. Because I said to someone I'm never even going to meet that I wouldn't. This makes no sense. I make no sense.

I want a drink and February 28th is just too far away.