The great day of wrath has come

Now, I'm no economist, but...

I love these openings: I'm no racist but I really fucking hate darkies. I'm no paedophile but there's just something a little bit sexy about those under twelves. I'm no actor but...you get the idea.

€500 billion. The government is guaranteeing loans of €500 billion. And with what? A national debt of €45 billion. A GDP of €190 billion. Now, I'm no mathematiticianiser, but...

Really, though, what the fuck? How can you guarantee something when you can't fucking guarantee it? How do people let this shit go? And why would the ISEQ suddenly pick up on the basis of a promise that is about as fulfilable as a solemn oath to reverse the direction of the Earth's rotation about its axis, thus turning back time Superman-like, leading not just to the resurection of Lois Lane but also to the possibility of a pack of rich cunts not fucking it all up so badly when given a second chance. Though fuck knows they'd do it again. And again and again and again. I know I would, if I were a rich cunt. Ya ha deedle deedle bubba bubba deedle deedle dum.

It seems to me that the world economy, our entire fiscal system, is built on an illusion. The government is guaranteeing money in banks with money it doesn't have borrowed from other countries who have borrowed from some other cunt who doesn't have it either. Is the Emperor fucking chilly or what?

I'm wrong of course. I'm no economist. I don't know shit about any of this shit. So if someone could, in three sentences or less as I have a really fucking short attention span, explain to me exactly how it is that I'm wrong, I will be if not grateful, then certainly in less of a snot with the world and its stupid economy crap.

I try to find a way to make all our little joys relate without that ever-present hate

The King is dead. Long live the King.

And now I just need a couple of pencils, my nostrils, and a little willpower.

I have no willpower. Stupid gun control laws.

You must become more than just a man in the mind of your opponent

Gimme: Did you hear about the escalating economic crisis?

Common Law: No.

Gimme: Congress rejected the bail out, the Dow Jones dropped like a bizillion points.

Common Law: Does that mean they won't be releasing Lego Batman?

Gimme: No.

Common Law: Well, then.

With greasy aprons, rules and hammers

I notice that Tony Lee, whomsoever he may be, has referred to me as a 'woman'. At least I believe it was me that he was thus addressing. Perhaps he was talking to Sniffle. But I've met Mr. Andcry and why he may well have a soft and sensitive side, he certainly does not exude femininity. I, on the other hand, am, if not all woman, then at least 50% lady. So I thought I would take this opportunity to regale you with a tale, which took place while I was sulking away, a tale that tells of my undoubted occasional manliness.

I got lucky with my first flat, in that it happened in our driveway.

'Hiss!' said Purple, as V and I emerged Kaluha-laden from our trip to the offy, 'Hiss!' This was not, as I first suspected, a comment on my recent rectitude towards driving and all its horribly wonderful evils. It was merely air emerging from Danger's non-Canadian Tyre. Tire? I don't fucking know. (Clue me in Canucks, on what the name of that wonderful shop wherein I purchased my first and last baseball glove is all about.)

My initial reaction, it must be said, lacked traditional masculinity. The weeping, the having to be explained to the concept of removing a tire from a car to facilitate its fixing, the downing of six quick Caucasians in an effort to separate myself from this concept. Some hours later I fell into a restless sleep filled with dreams of inflation by mouth.

The next morning, crippled by a most manly hangover and secure in the knowledge that with no tire-fixy there would be no dinners for the coming week, I tackled the problem anew. Common Law had sloped off, masking well her massive rage at being denied her now traditional Saturday lift to work.

I spent some time pottering about the boot of the car, vainly seeking a spare. There was a bolt under the carpety stuff but nothing with which to open it. I was about to abort the search and go next door to see if I could borrow a jack, vaguely planning to abandon the children somewhere and cycle to the nearest petrol station with the hissy-fit wheel upon by back, when Mother in Common Law popped up on the blower looking for the C to the L. Without thinking, I shared my woes. With much thought she unleashed a barrage of useful information and passed remarks. Oh, the remarks she passed.

This masculine bit isn't really coming together very well, is it? Watch me get all Hemingway on your ass, right about now:

I found the wheel. I found the jack. And most crucially, I found the little manual that tells you how to do shit. I braked. I loosened. I jacked. I took a quick break to jack off. I removed. I replaced. I unjacked. Drove fearfully to Fast Fit. Got sorted. Drove back.

See? Manly. Belatedly, perhaps, but still incredibly fucking manly.

Eddie, you're a born loser

Paul Newman is dead.

Which is annoying, if not unexpected or horribly tragic. I will now have to rethink my celebrity fuck list. And pay for all that printing.

If Shakira pops her clogs I'm just going to have go out there and buy me a laminator.


UPDATE: I also like his pasta sauces.

Like a coin that won't get tossed

I'm not old, not really.

I feel old, yes. I hurt old. My attitudes, my opinions are old. Old and sodden and limp. I act old even, from time to occasional time.

But my body, this empty shell, it ain't so old. It's young still. Or youngish. But these days, these Fridays, after a week hewn from 300 kilometres on the bike, from standing up, moving about and occasionally collapsing into a restless sleep, this body is bored of holding the fort of youth.

'The rest of you, of me, is old,' it whines, 'why must I be the only one to represent the mere thirty-fiveness of you?'

I have only this answer for my Corpus Gimme: 'That's just the way it fucking is, dude. I suggest that you ease the fuck back on the rebellious talk. Don't force me to produce the St. Paul tear gas. Don't make me make you cry all the more.'

The threat is idle, though, like all my threats, all my promises. My body, it likes the recent battering it has been receiving. It never hums and glows more than in the moments directly after a Lemonheads sprint, a Cyndi Lauper set of stairs, a Carmina Burana crazy climb. It's a big S&M freak, my body, and it's all about the M.

I need another form of intimidation, another promise of punishment. Vodka would seem to fit the bill. A bottle of Absolut would do the trick, would quell this uprising in my bones. But I'm stuck with sleeping children, a butterflying wallet and a nausea that can only be a forebearer of the oft anticipated TFC. Total. Physical. Collapse.

And so, like those greedy fucks who have made shit of these coins in my pocket, those pretty minus numbers in my online bank, it would seem that my body will be rewarded and not punished for its backchatty temerity. Rewarded by head smashing onto this keyboard for a nice, refreshing, eight hour table-nap.

That'll fucking show it.

I'm nothing if not inconsistent

I thought Roisín Ingle's expansive return to the Irish Times would suck me back in.

I was wrong.

I believed the re-dragging would be performed by the hilarity of Sarah Palin and her debate postponing, soon, I suspect, to be election cancelling, sugar-daddy.

Again, I erred.

On a letter from Riker's school, signed by all three 4th class teachers:

Reading:
Even in 4th Class reading is encouraged aloud and for enjoyment.

I'd fucking pull her out and home-school her myself if I could be remotely arsed.

I could not.

Rage I have.

Arsedness I have not.