Just like that robbery in '62

Gimme present (that's not a typo, we meant to use the first person plural there. We're a 'we' now, we've decided) a detailed look at how one might go about responding to the kind of comment that makes one want to reach aha like through the monitor and pull out the words in question so that one might set them on fire, piss on them, dry them out, set them on fire again and piss on them again before putting the resultant sodden pile of ashes in a tupperware bowl and posting said bowl, old school style, to their composer:


1) Read comment:

All too true Bock. The problem here seems to be that while the wife had another relationship she was not content to take his marriage away from him but also his family and his home and to set up the other man as a surrogate parent to his family.
While what he did was obviously wrong I personally can understand the pain and suffering he was going through. When someone is fucking with your mind you can get so deep into the mire that you can see no light at the end of the tunnel except maybe the train coming at you.

2) Physical and vocal but non-verbal reaction:

Do what feels right here. Grab your hair. Shriek. Realise that you don't really have any hair to grab anymore. Allow this to inform your shriek.

3) Verbalisation:

Mutter this to yourself, it's not suitable for the children. Something like: 'For the love of fucking christ fucking mary fucking the holy ghost, he fucking killed her.' Mutterings may be high in their pitch. Make use of this.

4) First draft:

Go on, get the mindless cursing, the ad hominen attacks, the scathing references to shitty, shitty tunnel end clichés out of the way. You'll want to open with something along the lines of 'He fucking stabbed her in front of their children you at the absolute best obtuse cunt.' Close with more cunts. Release the beast.

5) Second draft:

Do your smarty pants one.

'She was totally fucking asking for it, the bitch', works well.

'I'm not racist but...' is good too, but perhaps a little subtle for the kind of creep upon whom you are calling.

'You killed your wife too, didn't you?' on the other hand, fits the bill nicely.

6) Third and final draft:

This one is extremely labour-intensive involving as it does much thought, time, and trawling for the mot juste. It will be reasoned, logical and will have the power to lift the scales from the eyes of the horrible, the blind and the horribly blind. But you won't write it. It's too much work. Instead you should dial it back to smart-arse, and take it to your own bleugh where there's a chance not every fucker is firm in the believe that the ladies are our property to do with as we see fit.


This advice is applicable not just to the comment above but to the majority of comments on the same post. The post itself, being merely an incitement to misogyny, may need a different approach. We're guessing running repeatedly and face first into a brick wall might well do the trick.

Just victims of the in-house drive-by

You know when you’re playing GTA, not IV, but San Andreas, and you're just cruising around, looking for people to interesingly kill and suddenly there’s only like two kinds of cars on the road and a limited selection of pedestrians to run over and it grates just a little because everything else about the game is so fucking fantastic? You know when that happens? I thought so.

This been happening to me in 'real' life. Every second car on the road in the last few days has been a BMW. I've been boxed in, cut off and on Jesus Killer, almost mowed down. All by these Beemers, driven to a man and woman, by cunts. Terrible, terrible cunts.

And yet still I am not allowed to run them off the road and then shoot them in the face.

And I felt like getting high

We've fucked it all up and we will be extinct soon. Or as near as dammit. Post Zombie War levels of population is where we're going, if we survive at all, and it'll be all our fault. Even if a billion remain, incredible suffering and destruction will prevail. We know this.

Thing is, if you're reading this now, as opposed to when 'The Wisdom of Gimme' is bigger than the fucking Bible, then you'll be probably be dead before it gets too bad. Get in! We're the ones who fucked it up, we're the ones who had the chance to turn it around, but we don't have to pay! What an excellent deal. So whatever you fucking do, don't turn your fucking lights off. That would kind of mess with the plan for us to suck every available resource into our insanely comfortable lives.

So I just went outside. Walked to the middle of our L shaped cul de sac. Shrieked down both lines: 'Not one? Not one of you fucking cunts?'

And then I walked back to my darkened house. And turned all the lights back on. If they don't do it, I don't have to.

Her mother said 'Love is not that way. Dear God he'll pay.'

I cannot say that I believe it to be wrong. I am, of course, aware that society believes it to be wrong. But society has held many opinions through the ages, opinions that have now changed. The inferiority of women. The evil of homosexuality. The health benefits of smoking. And there was a time when my penchant for making love with the young would have been, if not encouraged, then certainly not condemned.

I had six good years with my step daughter, Katie. Our affair began when she was nine. This was a joyous time. She meant everything to me. I would have done anything for her. And she for me. But I cannot deny that feelings alter as the days, the weeks, the months pass, and by the time she fell upon fifteen our relationship had transformed. She had become sullen and moody, as teenagers will. Yes, I may fallen somewhat out of love with her. And while our nights together continued, I believe that she sensed my mounting disinterest and made the cruel decision to punish me. By talking to her mother, despite my warnings and then, shockingly, to the police. Oh, the lies she told. Rape? Abuse? What a joke. She consented. Consented with her eyes, her lying 'No's, her tears of joy.

I am a strong, fit fellow. I took part in the Rás for many years as a younger man. A domestique, serving my leaders, but still I completed the eight day race on three separate occasions. I have always kept up my fitness, and this has made my time behind these bars easier. Early on I came out on top in a scuffle, using my teeth to take a chunk out of my would be lover's penis and now, for the most part, I am left to my own devices. And yet, the way things are, I have another three years to serve. I will be fifty-five by the time I am released. It is a long time to live like this, without stimulation, without love.

All is not lost, however. They offer a treatment program here, you see, for so called 'sex offenders'. Rapists, abusers. I do not count myself among them. The uptake, of course, is minuscule. Ten men, I am told, who believe they can be 'cured', or who are, perhaps, looking to while away some of this interminable time. Needless to say I have never considered joining them. But there was news this morning, on Morning Ireland, news that filled me with hope. Olive Travers of NOTA, The National Organisation for the Treatment of Abusers, dear Olive, with her wonderful Hi-de-Hi voice, has advocated the offering of incentives for the take up of these 'cures'. Incentives such as temporary release. The public has to come to terms with this, she says. They can't have it both ways, she says. We are to be made safer, she says.

I know what I am, and I feel no remorse. But I am also capable of feigning a little shame, working through these 'treatments' so that I might leave this place, however briefly, and go to see my Katie. She will, I know, by now, be both old and worn out. But still I would like to see her. To tell her that I forgive her. To show her that I forgive her. For that, I will happily spend some hours nodding and displaying my most mournful of faces. I pray that Olive gets her way.


Morning Ireland, March 26, 2009 Interview begins at 27 minutes.

It's over, you don't need to tell me

I was so very young when we were first together that I barely recall how it felt. Just seventeen when we first parted and I believe I may have been a little relieved even then. And now as we reach the same point, so many years later, relief is once more my dominant emotion.

I'd like to say that 'it's not you, it's me'. But in all conscience, I cannot. It is you. I've done nothing wrong. Tried my best. Even at the beginning, after that briefest of honeymoon periods, it was something of a struggle. But I did all I could, always.

I have to say that there were times when I was a little ashamed of you, even embarrassed by your brazenness. Your constant need to be the topic of every conversation, at the most inappropriate times. Was it absolutely necessary for us to discuss you at that funeral, as the body was lowered into the ground?

Sure, there were good times, when you would appear suddenly before my eyes, surprising me with your beauty, your independence, your vigour. And perhaps there were times when I revelled in the attention you brought. But the bad days always seemed to outnumber the good, and when, in these last few weeks, I found myself attempting to buy with expensive gifts and treats your affection, or at least your occasional compliance, I knew that our time together was near its end.

I was trying to recapture my youth, I admit it. I should have known better. I'm truly sorry if this hurts you, but you could have made it so much easier. I only ever wanted you to be long, you only ever wanted to be big.

I will shed no tears as I, Monday to Wednesday, fork out my seven euro in Just Cuts.

They laugh 'cause they know they're untouchable

Stolen from the unfortunately monikered 7 of 9 on Creative Ireland.

I'd rather listen to Coltrane than go through all that shit again

'Sun comes up, it's Tuesday morning, hits me straight in the eye guess you forgot to close the blind last night, oh that's right, I forgot it was me.'

So opens the Cowboy Junkies', I just dumped my boyfriend because he fucked my cat (there are some things which can never be forgiven) and now I have to go to the cinema on my own but that's okay because I get more popcorn, moanfest. You think that shit's whiny? Wait till you get a load of my Tuesday.

Sun comes up, it Tuesday morning and I am filled with dread of day of unrelenting doings. A switch in personnel means I'm teaching Tuesday evenings instead of Mondays, making a total of three spin and four classes for the day. Common Law is in the middle of a tech week and so is not here to help or listen to me bitch. Today is also swimming day, which has recently developed into a battle with Data to have her become even remotely involved in the financially crippling lessons. I should be making the dinner right now so we're ready to go as soon Riker arrives in from school, instead of using you fuckers as a Common Law substitute. And just to make this Tuesday super extra special, I'm giving up smoking. Yes, again. I don't want to talk about it.

'Lunchtime, I start to dial your number, but then I remember so I reach for something to smoke.'

Bitch.

I see them bloom for me and you

Louis Armstrong saw trees of green and red roses too. Also within his eye-line were clouds of white and skies of blue. He thought to himself 'What a wonderful world.'

I sit on the toilet easing out a log as I play Virtual Pool with a total stranger who may well be laying some synchronistic cable him or herself and think to myself a very similar thought.

Some shit that got ripped from my brain by a mysterious internet device and written up by others before I got a chance to whinge on about it myself

This.
Seriously, the next door Fatherland Lady neighbour said as much without a hint of fucking irony. I'm super glad that Ireland's victory is making her feel better about having to wait an extra six months to buy a new car with our cash. And there's nothing like a Welsh outhalf throwing a game to take the edge off of only three sun holidays this year.

And to some extent, that.
It is very weird that no one battles herpes.

And totally fucking this.
I just do not understand how the fuck anyone in their right mind can disagree with even one word of this most spectacular of offerings. It would be like disagreeing with me. Unthinkable.

I found my mind in a brown paper bag within

Obama, you fucking dolt. That, as far as I'm concerned, is about all there is to it. The pack of pseudo-liberal wankers on my favourite pseudo-liberal blogs who have been attempting to defend the fuck up as 'just a little joke' and telling us that we 'need to lighten up and get a sense of humour' are exactly the same mongs (see what I did there?) who would have been having the shit fit of their lives had Bush said anything similar.

And then we have Palin, immersed in the experience of having pretty much inflicted Trisomy 21 on her own child, telling us that she's shocked by 'a degrading remark about our world's most precious and unique people'. Just fucking cunt off, you dozy bitch. How are the intellectually disabled unique? There's fucking millions of them and I'm not even counting the extra billions who are just fucking stupid as opposed to being in possesion of a somewhat limiting condition. Unique is having three fully functioning penises growing out of the side of your head. Unique is being able to hear that woman speak without getting either a raging Nazi side of the head hard on or the uncontrollable urge to rip off two of one's three face cocks so that one might jam them into one's ears to block out her insufferable whine. And precious? Fine, they're fucking precious, but they're no more precious than my children or your children or, to put a face on it for you, Evel Knievil's children.

The intellectually disabled don't need defending. They're not delicate fucking flowers. They're people, who maybe need a little more help with some things, but they're still fucking people. Taking the piss out of them is unkind, I'm sure, but I'm guessing most of them aren't that fucking bothered by Barrack's quip. They know they can kick his ass up and down the bowling alley. The people who are going to be most bothered are the people who these Alternative Olympics are really about: the organisers. There, I said it. I remember watching the opening ceremony at Croke Park and to a fucking man and a woman, the athletes looked tired, bored and miserable. Maybe they had more fun during the actual games but let there be no doubt, the people feeling the biggest glow of self-satisfaction at the end of the week were the people who so selflessly gave their time to make the lives of their alleged inferiors that much busier.

In summation: Obama, you dick. Palin, you cunt. Gimme, you massive fucking asshole.

I sleep in the kitchen with my feet in the hall

'When Wendy Richard was diagnosed with cancer for the third time in January 2008, she decided she wanted to make a film to help other people in a similar situation....her husband John explains why Wendy would still want it to be broadcast even though she died last month.'

I did not watch this program, entitled 'To Tell You the Truth' last night, but I'm pretty sure the answer is that even as her rotting corpse is ingested and shat out by Mr. Lowly Worm, the spirit of Wendy still craves attention like a sixty-a-day man who has been inexplicably nailed to the floor of his tasteful Dollymount apartment craves a fag. I have it on good authority that Ms Richard was a self-important, rude and insufferable bitch. I will not be going with the 'speak no ill of the dead' bit here.

She can fuck off. Jade Goody can fuck off. Nuala O'Faolain and Denis Potter can fuck off a little less, having made some kind of positive contribution to the world. But this latest cunt-list trend for tediously chronicling the final weeks of life contributes fucking nothing, to nobody. You're scared? You're concerned for those you're about to leave behind? You're 'brave'? Fuck you. We're all scared. We're all concerned for those we will leave behind. And unless we're curled up in a corner shrieking 'It's just not fair!' for our closing six months, we're all deemed 'brave'.

Used to be when one's 'famous for being famous' career was on the wane, one could stubbornly attempt to shoehorn oneself into some Channel 5 soft porn presenting post. Not no more. Now we're going to have ex-Big Brother contestants injecting themselves with smallpox, eating the poo of leukemia sufferers, and rubbing themselves off of lepers, all in the hope of contracting something fatal but long-lasting enough to justify a couple of seasons of deathly documentary. And that's a good thing, because at least they're going to die. But I don't want to watch it or read about it or accidentally become aware of its existence through this new media osmosis. So when Peter André gets ebola of the foreskin, please refraining from leaving a comment to that effect in my box.

Yeah, you can have that straight line.

A sky scraping dove

We have new paper towel dispensers in the gym. Oh yes we do. And they're fucking magic.

No longer must I strain my bulging biceps as I pull these pieces of paper from their plastic prison. Beardy Boy forbid. All I now need do is wave my hand in front of the little Paul Daniels sensor and Hey Jaysus Presto, my waiting palm is filled with rainforest ejaculate. I am overjoyed that, having happily frittered away untold natural resources running in place like the mindless rodent that I am, I may also contribute to the ultimate demise of this idiot planet with the unnecessary mopping of my sweaty brow.

It's the little things, don't you know.

Deep in the cell of my heart

Oooh. I'm up. I'm going. I'm typing about as fast as a guy who can't type can type and yet still my heart races like Lance with a complicit drug tester.

Couple of months back me and the Common Law came to a compromise. She was finding the espresso in her lattes uncomfortably strong. We had been long time 'Rich roast - Strength 4' users and I agreed to take it down to 'Medium Roast - Strength 3'. I didn't really get it to be honest, because what's the point in coffee if it's not jaw-grindingly strong, right? But thus are happy non-marriages maintained. Last week though, frustrated by the non-handleness of our current coffee maker, she told me that she was going to buy a new one. 'Disco,' I thought and went straight out and kicked it up to 'Espresso - Strength 5', in the knowledge that we would now be a two pot partnership. She never got around to it, but the coffee was bought and must now be used.

It's a big jump, both in strength and levels of instant addiction. I'm on my third pot, eighth shot. It's only three pm. I have all the things I get when I am unable to get my pie hole around any caffeine. The headache, the shakes, the crippling sense of uselessness. I'm not constipated though, I'll give Strength 5 that much. Nope, I've gone the whole other direction with that one.

The crash is coming though, and I suspect that when it comes time to shout and scream and cycle hard I will be found slumped on the bars, snoring peacefully.

Just one more shot then.

I can teach you, but I'd have to charge

So here I am fixing it home after an hour out of my comfort zone, inspiring fatties in a whole other postcode.

'How did you find it?'

'It was very different.'

'I fucking hope so dude, because the shit I watched you do last week is going to improve your fitness not one jot, while still severely fucking up your knees. You want to walk when you're fifty? Petition for my permanence.'

I'm coming through the Valley of the Flats on Amien Street and both sides of the road are populated by kids too young to still be out, non-school night or no. I pick up the pace, for as funny as dead baby jokes are to ten year olds even funnier is a face splattered cyclist. Up the hill I hammer and as I crest the top I see ahead of me a couple separated from their peers so that they might privately, yet publicly, eat the faces off of each other. I swear to fuck folks, these mutual Z War veterans cannot be more than ten years of age. Certainly they are no taller than my Riker and she, to my eternal shame, is no longer all that tall for her age.

So far so sweet then. I talk toss, of course. Four year olds perhaps, in one of those shitty Athena posters, leaning in for a posed peck, may well have an element of the cute. But these are not four year olds. Nor are they even adolescent. They are driven to this public display of affection by our fucked up culture of you must be sexy from the moment of your birth. There is worse to come however. As I near, his hands slip down to her non-existent tracksuited ass. So I:

Slowly slow, dismount frontally and approach, coughing to gain their attention, before launching into a reasoned and calm lecture on The Man and how his desire to be always richer and more powerful is robbing them of their innocence. They nod, instantly understanding, and go back to thinking that boys are smelly and girls are stupid. He even pulls her pigtail as they walk away.

Screech to a halt, leap from Jesus Killer, and grab the fucker by the scruff of the neck, propel him towards the canal. 'Get your hands, your filthy fucking hands, off my darling could be daughter or I will cut the fuckers off before I drown you in the drudge of the Royal Dublin.' He moans his remorse, reeking of his reconversion to childhood. A voice from behind me shrills 'Thank you, surrogate cycling Daddy!'

Spin on, descending and dreading what is to come when it is my real daughter and I am equally powerless.

What about the time of the fancy dress when you came dressed as your mum?

Here, read this. Or scan it. Or just glance at the first couple of sentences. You get the picture. The Premiership is shit, The League of Ireland is great. Bollox, clearly. So I left an hilarious comment to this effect, which may or may not have included something along the lines of 'A goal in the League of Ireland that does not involve an untidy scramble in the ten yard box is as rare as a pro-feminist Skin Flicks post'. Something like that. He refused to publish it. Fine, it's his bleugh, he can do what the fuck he wants. If I had comment moderation on, I too would censor all the comments that were funnier and more accurate than the post to which they referred. So I emailed Mr Skinner to ask for an explanation. He ignored me. Again, fine. Well done, even. There is no better way to irritate ignorant, arrogant, smart-arsed cunts than with the dreaded weapon of pretending they don't exist. Don't feed the trolls, wacka wacka wacka. But then he goes and publishes this. Nuff said, indeed. Which is it, you fucking hypocrite?

And then there's this. You can probably hazard a guess as to what side I'm on there. Kill a bunch of black guys? Racist. Kill a pack of queers? Homophobic. Kill a load of chicks? Coincidence. People are dicks and people you would have hoped are not dicks are even bigger dicks. Those who take feminism as a personal attack are the worst kind of obtuse. Is that a sentence? It fucking is now. 'All men are evil'. Nobody fucking said that. Shut the fuck up. Jesus.

And finally, this. What the fuck is that shit about? I don't even want to know.

I'm not talking to the internet. It's a total cunt.

Teacher's gonna show you how to get an 'A'

Been meaning to share these for a while. Yeah, yeah I know it's all very 'Scoffs, scores and scarpers' but I need you folks to know what it is that I face dailyly on the front line of the fitness industry.

I think we hit a pyschic wall

'Why is Patrick Day green?'

'Pardon, sweetie?'

'Why is Patrick Day green?'

'You mean why does everyone wear green on St Patrick's Day?'

'And flags. We're making green flags in Mount Ten Story for Patrick Day.'

'Yes, flags too. Well, you see green is our national colour. Because of the grass or something. And St. Patrick is our national saint. Because of snakes or something. So that's why St Patrick's Day is green.'

'Snakes aren't green.'

'Some of them are.'

'Patrick Day should be pink.'

'You think everything should be pink.'

'Patrick is pink.'

'Is he?'

'Yes.'

'What Patrick is this?'

'Patrick Star.'

'I don't know who that is.'

'Oh, Dad.'

'Riker, who's Patrick Star?'

'Oh, Dad.'

'What?'

'Patrick. From Spongebob.'


Data, I feel, will not be shooting too many police officers in the back of the head in the name of a United Ireland. Plankton though, had better watch the fuck out.

In a parked car, in a crowded street

Is a one line question about everyday life the best way to elicit responses if one's last few posts have failed to achieve double comment digits?

Got no words of sympathy

Oooh I so fat! It make me sad :-( I sad. I do crash diets! I be happy! :-) Oooh crash diets no worky because they starve my bodywody training it retain as much bodyfat as it possibly can! Now while me was briefly too kilopounds more lighty once me go back on the pies I suddenly fatter than ever! I is sad again! :-( What Gimme say? Me could get up off my's massive arse and takes a little exercise? But that sound like hard, hard work! Couldn't me just beed happy within myslef and positive and not a nasty cantankerous cunt? Me beed that! I fat and at risk for heart disease and early death and burdening of the state and passing off shitty eating habits to my's children who will mostly likely be carted around in a motorised buggy by the time they is thirteen but it okay! :-) I happy within myslef! :-) :-) :-)

Don't I know you from the cinematographer's party?

Fuck. He knows. And I know that he knows. But I'm pretty sure that he doesn't know that I know. Which is good because if he does know that I know that he knows it's going to make for awkwardness the like of which I have not experienced since I accidentally called that now vaguely famous person a 'dog' while I was trying to chat her up. Ooh, that was awkward. But that will be nothing, nothing I tell you, to the awkwardness that will ensue if it becomes known that he knows that I know that he knows.

You know, maybe he doesn't know. Yeah, I know, he does know. I know, I know.

You've been so busy lately

So in a shocking turn of events reiki and its wonders totally failed to save the life of my ultra-cancered aunt, or even to prolong it to the point where she could visit the home country one last time or attend her daughter's summer wedding. She died, with at least a degree of morphine-dripped peace, in the early hours of last Thursday morning. I did not travel to Cosa Nostra Land for the funeral.

The oldest child in a family of six children, she could be somewhat domineering. So she was. She might also have been a contender for the World's Best Not Listening to Anybody Else About Any Fucking Thing Award. But she was also kind, super smart and generous to a fault. I saw her rarely in the last decade or so but she was a major fixture in my childhood, with trips to Catania forming a part of almost every summer holiday. I liked her fine, this bossy bint. I feel for her children, both just a little older than me. And I feel even more for my devastated mother who is buckling under her loss, her grief and I can't help but believe, a heavy shadow that she can only feel creeping towards her.

I've watched a long procession of not so great aunts and uncles take a bite of the dirt sandwich over the last couple of years and have remained spectacularly untouched by each of these inevitable deaths. But this, being different, feels very different. Life is screaming at me of its brevity and I am doing my very best, like my Auntie Paula, to just not listen.

I've got to bleed myself of you

Every time the entire family piles into Purple I feel the need to intone Morrisonly: 'Is everybody in? Is? Everybody? In? The ceremony is about to begin...'. But then I mentally acknowledge that what is about to begin is not a ceremony but a drive to Mother in Common Law's or the shops or that one time, Clare. I also remember that my brief obsession with The Doors was perhaps not the happiest incident in my music appreciation history, nor something I want to encourage in the musical tastes of the Bridge Crew. Sure, go with the drug-fueld compositions ladies, just make them a little less sophomoric than those of The Lizard King.

Where were we? We were getting into the car and yes, the destination is Mother in Common Law's. It is my good non-wife's birthday and we're popping up for dinner. Common Law holds a birthday coffee in her right hand. Everything that I hand to her today includes the qualifier 'birthday'. Her birthday presents, her birthday breakfast, her birthday remote control. With my left hand I reach behind me for the seat belt and pull it around in front of me with an enthusiasm that belies my excitement about the evening ahead. I elbow Common Law's arm. There is quite some spillage.

'I'm sorry! Sorry! Sorry!' I only use exclamation marks for taking the piss and apologising. Common Law responded, as is her wont, in a deader than deadpan manner:

'Oh, my fault. I should have been watching what you were doing.'

And so she should. You should all remain constantly vigilant while in the physical presence of Gimme.