There have been political intrigues of almost Shakespearean proportions taking place over the past fortnight.  Michael Gove, who had regularly assured us that under no circumstances would he ever wish to become Prime Minister, wasted no time in giving his backing to Boris Johnson’s leadership bid in the wake of David Cameron’s resignation.  Instead of BoJo, we were to have BoGo and with the public clamouring “Run Borist!  Run!”, the bookies shortening Boris’s odds on becoming the next Prime Minister to 1/1 and the media purveying Boris’s coronation as being almost inevitable, it seemed that Boris the bumbling, babbling buffoon was due to be the next British leader.  All was not well behind the scenes however as a leaked email from Michael Gove’s wife, Lady MacBeth Sara Vine indicates:

“Very important that we focus now on the individual obstacles and thoroughly overcome them before moving to the next.

I really think Michael needs to have a Henry or a Beth with him for this morning’s critical meetings.

One simple message you MUST have SPECIFIC assurances from Boris OTHERWISE you cannot guarantee your support.

The details can be worked out later on, but without that you have no leverage.

Crucially the membership will not have the necessary reassurance to back Boris, neither will Dacre / Murdoch, who instinctively dislike Boris but trust your ability enough to support a Boris / Gove ticket.

Do not concede any ground. Be your stubborn best.

GOOD LUCK”

Few things: firstly I love the use of “we” in reference to the obstacles which must be thoroughly overcome.  Surely it’s he who must overcome them as he’s the politician, the one doing the negotiating, not his wife, the Daily Mail columnist.  Secondly, why is she addressing him in the third person!?  How fucking patronising is that?  “Michael needs to have a Henry or Beth (his special advisors) with him for this morning’s critical meetings”.  I’m guessing what’s left unsaid is that Michael needs to remember his packed lunch, wear a coat if it’s chilly and to make sure to wipe his arse properly – that is assuming she trusts that Michael can find it with both hands.  Finally I love the encouragement to stubbornly not concede any ground because a non-compromising attitude is exactly what you need in a negotiation.  Fuck me, she may as well have told him to “screw your courage to the sticking place and we’ll not fail”.

Michael Gove is supposedly an intelligent man though I find this hard to believe not least because his rebuttal to the economic arguments of the Remain campaign (which were admittedly fact based scare-mongering) was that “Britain has had enough of experts” but also because he ever believed that Borist Gump could ever EVER be a credible Prime Minister.  People complain about Jezza Corbyn not being leader material but he’s Alexander the Great compared to Calamity Boris.  It would seem that Michael reached this conclusion several days into the BoGo campaign, promptly withdrew his support and announced his own intention to run for leader of the Tory party (This is despite over the years having said that, according to www.politics.co.uk, he has not got the exceptional level of ability to do the job, he doesn’t have what it takes and would be inconceivable as the party leader).  To be honest, I’m surprised it took him that long though he doesn’t look the strongest of men physically and it may have taken him that long to remove the dagger from where he’d wedged it so firmly between David Cameron’s shoulder blades a few months before.  Alas, with BoGo a no-go, BoJo said no-no and announced that lunchtime the same day that he would not be running for the Tory leadership.  Stabbed in the back before he’d even got started and looking quite forlorn, I almost felt sorry for Boris…but then I remembered that the backstabbing git had supported a Brexit vote purely to further his own political career.  What goes around, comes around as they say.

MacBeth Gove would get his own comeuppance when he got knocked out in the second round of voting by his own MPs as to who their two preferred candidates are for the leadership contest which will ultimately be decided by party members.  A delicious dollop of irony on top of this was that the Daily Mail, the paper for which Sara Vine writes and edited by Paul Dacre mentioned in her email, came out in support of Theresa May.  This is damning not just because Sara Vine obviously presumed to have some sway over Dacre’s editorial choice, but also because the Daily Mail was rabidly pro Brexit throughout the campaign and Theresa May had stated that she was supporting a vote to Remain.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the chamber, Labour were sharpening their own knives.  Not at the prospect of getting stuck into a divided Tory party to try and fight for a better future for all in the UK but to shank Jezza Corbyn as rebel MPs motioned a vote of no-confidence to be held by the parliamentary Labour party.  Jezza duly won this 172 – 40 and…..what’s that….uh uh….he lost it by 172 – 40!?  Why the hell is he still there then?  Well according to Jezza himself in an interview on the Andrew Marr Show this morning, it is because of the overwhelming mandate given to him by Labour Party members in the party leadership contest last year.  How overwhelming?  Well, he received over 250,000 votes alone in the first round of voting, a whopping 59.5% of votes cast with his nearest competitor, Andy Burnham, coming a distant second with 80,462 and 19% respectively so pretty damn overwhelming.  Given this level of support, I find it hilarious that his MPs feel that he is unsuitable to be leader but given the result of the Referendum (where lots of Labour voters voting Brexit due to the Blair / Brown years of supposed prosperity not translating to their particular circumstances and their concerns about immigration being ignored), the will of the people doesn’t really seem to mean much to his challengers.  At least Jezza was honest and told people immigration from the EU would remain uncapped for the foreseeable future with a Remain vote.

Nonetheless with shadow cabinet ministers resigning the same day they’ve been accepted the post in some cases, it seems that Labour is on the verge of splitting apart.  In this hour of need, what great unifying candidate has been put forward to combat Jezza the Divider.  What great orator shall pulverise him in debates and win over the electorate?  What fearsome defender of worker’s rights and traditional Labour values shall staunch the momentum of…well…Momentum.  Stand up, great leader and be known!!!  Angela Eagle….ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME??  I watched her being interviewed by Andrew Neil this morning and she was insipid.  The only thing I’d be inspired to do in the event of her winning would be to cancel my Labour membership.

*Sigh* In life, one must always be careful not to step in the leadershit.  Oh well, I’ll leave you with a joke from the @corbynjokes twitter feed:

How many shadow ministers does it take to change a lightbulb?

I don’t know. The lightbulb tends to outlast them.

I’ve been meaning to write this update for some time now but the carry-on this week has been nothing short of spectacular.  Every day brings some new twist in the strange and sordid tale of Borist Gump, Nigel Fromage and Michael “Macbeth” Gove but before I get to that, let’s rewind eleven days to the evening of Thursday 23^rd June, 2016.  It’s the evening of the European Election, the polls are closed and I’m stuck in Stansted Airport waiting to board a plane that is already two hours late while earwigging some D4 high-flyer from Dublin waffle on about how he’s had several meetings cancelled this week by clients due to Brexit jitters and all the poor fella is trying to do is set up “offshore accounts for property developers”.  I’m sure the pretty young lady he’s droning to is sympathetic to his plight, I’m sure she’s dazzled by his business acumen (I could be wrong, it could be the light shining off his slicked back hair) and I’m also sure that if he does not shut the f*** up, I will have a psychotic break down and beat his smug face to a paste.

As I stand there wondering if I could plead temporary insanity and extenuating circumstances in the resulting murder trial, his nasal twang butts into my reverie; the gobshite went to my alma mater, Trinity College in Dublin.  “F**ker’s probably a BESS-head” ⁽¹⁾, I think to myself and feel an upwelling of disdain as I imagine him sashaying into the Arts Block for his first lecture of the week at 1500 on a Monday, pausing a while on the myriad comfy sofas outside the theatre so he can finish his mocha latte before swaggering in fashionably late with a knowing nod to the Burberry clad, fake tanned oompa-loompas that are the female of the species.  In contrast, the scientists and engineers like me will have been in since 0900 with a full lecture schedule for the day and no fucking comfy sofas whatsoever.  We’ve got stone steps instead – dual purpose which means more efficient use of space and décor that encourages one not to hang around outside the theatres doing frivolous things like sipping over-priced coffee.  That absolute wanker, that waste of semen, that…

“No, actually I did engineering as my undergrad at Trinity.  I focking (sic) loved it”

AH JAYSUS!!  Ronan the Barbeerian trained as an engineer?  Oh the shame, the ignominy, the HUGE MANATEE!  What on earth turned him to the dark side?  He could have done something useful with his life but no, he went into financial services.  I’ll bet he trained as a computer engineer and got lured t…

“Ah yeah, civil engineering was great craic.”

FUUUUUUUUCCCCKKKKKKK!!!

Suffice to say, by the time I eventually made it to my mum’s flat in Dublin (very) early on Friday morning, I was not in the best of form and my mood was darkened further by the preliminary results being reported by the BBC.  With 15 of 382 constituencies reporting, the Leave side’s lead was in the tens of thousands but that was to be expected; the results were from a lot of council’s in the north of England where the Remain campaign had singularly failed to answer people’s concerns about uncontrolled immigration but there were still the major metropolitan centres in London, Manchester, etc. to report along with the Welsh, the Northern Irish and the Scots.  I stayed up as long as I could but eventually the toll of a long day and David Dimbleby’s solemn commentary proved too much.  I went to bed around 0200 not especially hopeful of a resounding Remain victory but hopeful of a slender one at least.

I woke up later that morning around 0930 to find that:

• Great Britain had voted to leave the EU. Well, that’s not strictly true; the Scottish had voted overwhelmingly to remain as had London and most of Northern Ireland but everywhere else, Wales included, wanted out.
• The pound had plummeted to its lowest price since I was born 31 years ago
• David Cameron had resigned in an emotional speech outside No. 10 that morning

Holy shit…didn’t see that coming.  Apparently neither had the Leave campaign – indeed at the start of the night they were expecting to lose as with the polls so close, everyone, the bookies, the investors, the speculators…everyone…had expected the status quo to win.  Surely the plebs wouldn’t vote for Brexit, they know which side their bread is buttered on, fear of the unknown will be trumped by the comfort of familiarity and we’ll wake up on Friday morning to find that the British public wishes to remain within the EU or so went the narrative.

The twist was though that the English and to a lesser extent, the Welsh had finally had enough of austerity, a lack of jobs, longer NHS waiting times, fewer places at schools and all the other public issues which the Leave campaign had unfairly blamed on uncontrolled immigration from the EU, flipped the bird at the Westminster elite, ignored the warnings of financial armageddon and decided to “take their country back”.  I will admit that I was livid at the decision – not because I think that those who voted Leave are idiots or fools.  Indeed, I can understand their motivations and the fervent desire to disobey the powers that be when they purport to know what’s best.  I’m livid because the people that have likely been most disadvantaged by an influx of migrant labour, the working class, chose the likes of Johnson, Gove and Farage to provide their salvation.  Will Self summed it up quite well in post result debate with Dreda Say Mitchell on Channel 4 news as he quipped sarcastically “Oh! What’s that up there in the sky?  Is it a bird?  Is it a plane?  No it’s Boris Johnson come to deliver you social democracy and a more equal society”.

I’m in a quandary; on the one hand, I am dismayed at the, in my opinion, ill-judged decision to leave the EU which, though far from perfect, I believe to be an example of international cooperation that should be celebrated, not shunned.  It’s not that long ago that the peoples of Europe were bombing each other into oblivion.  The racist overtones which accompanied the Leave campaign have also manifested in frankly disgusting acts such as Polish (and other nationalities) being told to “go home” as a result of the vote or having notes pushed through their letter boxes referring to them as “vermin”.  It is unfortunate that while the majority of Brexiteers are not racist and had legitimate (and unaddressed) concerns about uncontrolled migration, all the racists are likely Brexiteers and the result has brought them crawling out of the woodwork.

On the other hand, I love the fact that the people told the political elite they could shove it and voted as they saw fit.  Despite the dire predictions of the Treasury, the patronising warnings from politicians both domestic and foreign, the overwhelming and fervent wish of the rest of Europe, Joe Public stuck to his guns and voted as he / she saw fit.  While I believe the result is ultimately a victory for the far right and for isolationism over cooperation, at the same time I can’t help but smile at the chaos it’s unleashed.  I’ll deal with the resulting political fall out in my next post but we’re certainly in for a bumpy ride.

Hold onto your butts!

⁽¹⁾ BESS stands for Business, Economic and Social Studies and was the largest course in Trinity in terms of students.  While I am painting a (mostly unfair) caricature for humorous purposes, I’m not sure whether it’s popularity was down to course content or social shenanigans.

To begin with, I’d like to acknowledge the passing of the great Mohammed Ali.  While not a regular watcher of boxing (in fact I think that watching two people beat the crap out of each other is quite brutal entertainment), I can appreciate his athletic prowess, remarkable agility and an uncanny ability to shake off whatever blows life, or indeed another heavy weight, might throw at him.  I think what I appreciate most however is his dexterity, verbal rather than physical.  Whether it was his poetic prophesies about when his opponent would go down or just a general commentary on how good he was, Ali’s showmanship was truly original.  I’ve heard other sportsmen mouthing off and it always strikes me as unnecessary and arrogant however Ali’s was delivered with such confidence and self-belief that you couldn’t help but agree with him.

I know it sounds horrible but probably the one good thing that came out of Mohammed Ali’s death (and more recently the senseless massacre in Orlando) is that for a few days at least, the current Tory leadership contest has been knocked off the front pages of the newspapers.  Sorry, did I say Tory leadership contest?  I meant the EU Referendum taking place in just over a week on whether the UK will remain within the European Union though, in my defence, it’s quite easy to mistake one for the other these days.  If it’s not David Cameron prattling on about World War 3 or George Osborne predicting economic Armageddon at the merest mention of leaving the single market, it’s Boris Johnson claiming that the UK will have £350 million per week extra or Michael Gove assuring us that the borders will be secure once the UK no longer has to kowtow to its European overlords.

Meanwhile, the Labour party is trying to make as much political capital as possible by just keeping quiet about the whole thing.  It’s only in the past few days that Jezza Corbyn has really started to pipe up about Labour’s unwavering support for remaining…or is it leaving…no, it’s remaining because the EU is all about worker’s rights and Jezza loves that sort of thing….but then again, historically he’s a Eurosceptic since it is The Establishment and certainly in the UK and Ireland, somewhere where you send failed career politicians to get a cushy wage and an even cushier pension at the expense of the common working man so maybe Jezza’s out but Labour is in.  This conclusion is borne out by recent polls showing that roughly 50% of Labour voters haven’t a Scooby-doo which fecking way their party is voting.  One thing they can be sure of though is that whatever happens, it’s the fault of Tory austerity cuts as that’s all that the Labour referendum press conferences seem to be about.

 “Don’t vote out because then this Tory government will privatise the NHS faster than you can say Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership”

“They could do that anyway whether we’re in or not”

“They’re more likely to do it if we’re out because the sentient mop, Boris Johnson, will be in charge while the moderate Hameron will have been stabbed in the back and spit roasted.  Farrage will be out spearheading a consortium to buy the thing as he’ll be out of a job.  Be afraid!  BE VERY AFRAID!!”

“But the next government could be a Labour government”

****DERANGED HYSTERICAL LAUGHTER****

My ire was raised to intolerable levels when I came home to find a leaflet purporting to be “Official Information about the Referendum on 23 June 2016” and titled “THE EUROPEAN UNION AND YOUR FAMILY: FACTS”.  The first “Fact” is that “Britain’s official bill for EU membership is £19bn per year or £350m per week – the cost of a new hospital”.  This is infuriating for several reasons, primary amongst which is that while the official bill is equivalent to £350m per week, the UK has a rebate worth approximately £75m per week which immediately, as in never leaves the fucking country, is subtracted from that sum so the figure itself is misleading.  Once you take into account the amount of EU spending (that’s EU spending on regional aid, farm subsidies and research grants, etc.) the net contribution of the UK to the EU is more like £180m so about half the amount quoted.  Considering the Leave campaign’s harping (justifiably I might add) about the excessively pessimistic economic figures for a Brexit clusterfuck being chucked out by George Osborne, it’s a bit rich.

I also take issue with the “cost of a new hospital” line since both BJ and Farage are both on the record for not wanting the NHS to be a universally available public service, rather that people should have to pay for them so they are not abused and that they would be valued more, in Boris’s case or that the public should all have health insurance as advocated by Farage (because it works so fucking well in the US, doesn’t it, Nigel)  In my opinion, two major signs of a civilised society are free education for all and free healthcare for all.  The clue is in the word “society”; my taxes fund the NHS and I am quite happy for my contribution to the NHS to far exceed any costs that I may impose upon it and indeed, I feel happy that should someone I may never know contract some terrible disease through no fault of their own, my money will help fund their treatment and they (and I) will never have to worry about being unable to pay.

The leaflet also pointed out that 5 new countries are in the queue to join the EU: Albania, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey which represents 89 million people and that “when they join, they will have the same rights as other member states”.  Again, this is all true but it’s there to provoke a xenophobic reaction about the potential for so many people to suddenly decide to come work in the UK.  My issue is that Turkey, which represents 76 million people, has been in the queue since 1987 and still has fulfilled only one of the 35 odd criteria for joining the EU…oh, and the UK can veto their membership as well.  Don’t get me wrong; British citizens are right to be concerned about unchecked immigration and its potential knock on effects on their public services but present the figures with some degree of a realistic context for crying out loud.

The whole fiasco hit a new level of farce when Nigel Farage decided to lead a flotilla of ships up the Thames to protest at EU fishing quotas destroying the livelihoods of honest hardworking fishermen…apart from the captain of the lead flotilla boat, Ernest Simpson, who, according to Greenpeace UK, was involved in a £63m scam to work around fishing quotas along with over a dozen other Scottish fishermen.   Mr Simpsons and his son were fined £130,000 for their part in the fraud.  Meanwhile, Sir Bob “Show me the fucking money” Geldof stages a Remain flotilla and starts yelling at Nigel Farage that he’s a fraud and “no fisherman’s friend”.  This is apparently in reference to the Nigel being wholly absent as an MEP from EU meetings regarding fisheries and quotas where he could have influenced policy.  Sir Bob then proceeded to blast out “I’m in with the In Crowd” while flipping the bird at Nigel as some of the Brexit fishing boats squirted the Remain dinghies with water (Bob was on a yacht).  I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised…you’ll find all sorts of shite floating in the Thames.

Anyway, only one more week of this crap and I guess we’ll see what happens.  I read an article last week which quoted the Clash and it is quite appropriate: should we stay or should we go now?

Well, it’s been too long since I’ve done one of these and while I know that my regular readers (Danish bots advertising Scandinavian hoover suppliers) aren’t going to be missing my witty insights, given what’s been going on over the past week, now’s as good a time as any.  Where to begin though?

I suppose it’s got to be that old favourite, Donny Boy!  Yes the Ginger Whinger has achieved the impossible and said something even more outrageous than labelling all Mexican immigrants rapists and drug dealers, more sinister than advocating the bombing of terrorist’s family members and more fatuous than assuring the world of the enormity of his penis; the Trumpet has now insinuated that Ted Lyin’ Cruz’s father. Rafael Cruz, was involved in the assassination of JFK.  I suppose we should be thankful that The Don at least has some documentary evidence this time to back up his assertions though unfortunately that document is the National Enquirer which has endorsed Donald and which I wouldn’t even use to wipe my arse because it’s already full of shit.

The “article” in question consists of photos purportedly showing Rafael Cruz pro-Castro leaflets with Lee Harvey Oswald in 1963 and these have supposedly been verified by the Enquirer’s own photographic experts.  Now, I’ll be honest and say that Ted Cruz makes my skin crawl and his father’s messianic statements about his son being the saviour of America are completely ridiculous however even if the photos are real, it’s a bit of a stretch to then accuse him of being involved in the assassination or as Salacious D put it:

“And (Ted Cruz’s) father, you know, was with Lee Harvey Oswald prior to Oswald’s, you know, being shot. I mean the whole thing is ridiculous….I mean what was he doing with Lee Harvey Oswald, shortly before the death? Before the shooting? It’s horrible.”

You know what, Donald?  For once I agree with you.  The whole sorry scenario is truly horrible.

Anyway, from one loony billionaire to another, this week also saw the potential demise of BHS in the UK as the chain following its sale by Sir Philip Green to Retail Acquisitions for £1.  Yes, that’s right, a solitary pound netted Dominic Chappell, leader of the Retail Acquisition consortium, the entirety of BHS; 86 years of trading, 164 stores and most importantly 11,000 jobs.  How did he manage to get all of this for £1 you ask?  Well, it turns out that under the leadership of Sir Philip Green (who received his knighthood from Tony Blair’s government in 2006 for, irony of ironies, services to British Business) there was a bit of a hole in the pension fund at BHS.  Actually. ‘hole’ doesn’t really do it justice; it’s more bottomless chasm of doom.  Actually, ‘bottomless’ isn’t quite right either; it does have a bottom although it’s about £571m below ground level and any buyer would have to cover that since Sir Phil wasn’t about to.  The real kick in the teeth though is that since May 2000, the Green family (his wife is the actual owner as Phil transferred the business to her….nothing at all to do with her being a resident in Monaco, I’m sure) has taken £586m out of BHS as dividends, rent and interests on loans; I think I might know where the pension pit of darkness might have originated.

If you think that’s bad however, at least Phil has some business acumen behind him.  The bell-end he sold BHS to, Dominic Chappell, is an utter prat.  He’s gone bankrupt twice, one of which could have been straight out of the Donald playbook, he arsed up a property development on the picturesque Isle of Wight.  He had borrowed £24m from Anglo Irish Bank (don’t get me started) in 2009 and wisely invested it in boats, cars and a helicopter.  He then came into contact with Paul Sutton, a convicted fraudster and became his bitch.  Sir Phil had at one point been on the verge of selling BHS to Sutton in 2014 however when Green was informed of Sutton’s fraudulent past, he killed the sale.  At this point, Chappell spotted his opportunity, formed Retail Acquisitions and started courting Sir Phil instead.  Any hope senior management at BHS might have had of a competent owner was dashed when Chappell took an £8.4m loan from BHS a month after buying it, awarded himself a £540,000 salary and in July 2015, took out a £25m loan for BHS from Allied Commercial Exporters at the extortionate rate of 20% (the loan was referred to internally as the Wonga Loan).  Days before the administrators were called in, Chappell also tried to move £1.5m from BHS to Sweden for some reason (to the company of a friend who was also on the board of Retail Acquisitions) but kindly returned it when asked to….minus the £50k transfer fee.

The sad thing is that these two gobshites are currently living lives of luxury while the ordinary workers fret about what’s going to happen to their jobs and income.  It’s almost funny in that as an Irish taxpayer, I’ve partly paid for Chappell’s previous excesses (Ireland eventually bailed out Anglo Irish Bank who were an utter shower of….*deep breath* never mind) while as a UK taxpayer, I’m going to end up partially funding the pension pit in BHS because I very much fucking doubt that the £80m that Sir Phil has offered is going to cover it.

I’d like to end on a happy note however and wish Mr. C a happy birthday today.  Hopefully many more to come!

So I know you’ve been waiting a long time, I’ve been waiting a long time, we’ve all been waiting a long time but you know, I’m here finally so everything is great, in fact it’s more than great, it’s fantastic.  Anyway, I was watching this game which I have never seen before and it’s called rugby.  There’s two teams, right, and each team has 15 guys on it, or it could be 14, maybe 13, I don’t know, who cares, it’s European so it’s socialist.  Anyway, there are two teams, though they did mention a No.8 which seemed very important so maybe there are 16 on a team.  See that connection I made?  16 is a multiple of 8 so you know, I’m smart like that.  I love smart people, I love you guys, I love myself, I’m great, in fact I’m more than great, I’m fantastic.  The Chinese like the no.8, I love the Chinese, they’re smart, they’re really smart, I mean they make all this stuff all so inexpensively. I love ‘em, I really do.  I love everything about them, I love their food, their culture, I love their Great Wall.  It’s great, it really is.  It’s not as great as the one I’m going to build along the Mexican border which isn’t going to be just great, it’s going to be fantastic.  I was going to get the Mexicans to build it but maybe I’ll get the Chinese to do it instead, they’ll do it really inexpensively.  I really like that about them, I love everything about them apart from their cheap manufacturing base undercutting ours and their communism, I hate all communists but I love the Chinese, I really do.

Anyway, I was watching these two teams, France and Wales play against each other.  Can you believe it?  Wales!!??  Who calls their country after a fish? Seriously, it must be a European socialist thing.  Anyway, these guys are smashing into each other for, must have been about 80 minutes, I don’t know, it could have been 29, it could have been 53, the match clock kept stopping even though it wasn’t an ad break, it was really confusing.  Anyway, there’s this one bit where this small guy playing for Wales, I think he was called Scrum Half, weird name, it must be Walesish thing.  Anyway this guy he’s got 3 men outside of him, or maybe it was 4, I don’t know but there’s just 2French guys in front of ‘em and all he has to do is pass the ball and they’ll score.  I would have passed the ball, you would have passed the ball, hell even Cruz would have passed the ball and he knows nothing.  If he’d been on The Apprentice, I’d have fired him then and there.  I’d have said “Scrum, you’re fired!” but anyway, despite such incompetence, I love incompetence, it’s such a great word, in fact it’s a fantastic word, anyway, the fish won 16 – 3 or maybe it was 19 – 10, I can’t remember.

Then there was this other game right, it’s the Irish against the English.  I love the Irish, I really do, I love their drinking, I love their red hair, it’s just like mine except you know, not as great…or red.  Anyway, the Irish are playing the English and the commentator is saying they’ve got 8 – there’s that number again – of their starting 16 injured and I’m thinking that’s total bullshit.  Yes, I said it, total bullshit because these guys don’t look injured at all, they look fine.  They’re probably scamming benefits and taking the money away from hardworking people like you and me, especially me.  I work very hard and I love money.  Anyway, it’s bullshit, it’s a lie, not even Rubio would tell a lie this big and he’s the biggest liar I know.  So they keep playing and they’re talking about this guy, I think his name is Billy Fannypolo or something like that and the guy’s unstoppable. I love him, I really do, he’s unstoppable like my presidential appointment but it turns out that he’s not even English!?  He’s from Tonga and his brother is playing too…it’s ridiculous, hardworking Englishmen, not women, women can’t play this sport, it’s too rough and they’d get injured unless they’re ugly in which case, I don’t care but this guy and his brother are immigrants and they’re playing for England and I just couldn’t believe it.  I could not believe it.  It must be a European thing.  Anyway, Funnyplaya plays great and the English win which is great too, I love the English, I really do.

There was another game, it was Scotland against Italy and you know what, I love the Scots.  They let me build golf courses all over their beaches and it’s great, it really is.  This guy, Alex Salmon just let me build golf courses all over these crappy beaches.  So they’re playing the Italians and I love the Italians, I really do.  I mean Berlusconi, what a guy!  He’s having bunga bunga parties and making loads of money….he reminds me of me, except, you know, not as great and with less money and less hair and not as good looking.  I think the Scots won but I’m not sure, I didn’t see the game.  I was too busy flirting with Hillary on Twitter, she loves me, she really does.  All women love me, I just have this magnetism.

Anyway, it’s all part of this competition over 5 weekends called the 6 Nations…or maybe it’s over 6 weekends and called the 5 Nations…I don’t know it doesn’t matter, who cares.  Vote Trump and make America great again…in fact, not just great, fantastic.

You’d be forgiven for thinking it was happy hour in the Stade de France last Saturday with the amount of cheap shots that the French were sending Ireland’s way.  The French hooker, Guilhem Guirado, gave Dave Kearney a “Toulon Clearout” (known elsewhere as “High tackle ref!”) which not only broke the ice but also Dave’s shoulder.  The real surprise though is that Johnny Sexton was still upright by the end of the game given how many cheap shots he had.  Yoann Maestri gave him a “Backdoor Shoulder Barge”, a highly illegal cheap shot which would normally get you kicked out of the bar yet Jaco Peyper saw fit just to give him a warning for some reason.  Humour aside, I’m not wearing emerald tinted glasses and am well aware that Irish players have somehow escaped deserved bans in the recent past for dirty play but for Maestri to do something which according to the citing commission was “just short of a red card” and not even have to leave the pitch for ten minutes is a bit ridiculous.  Anyway, it was a dismal afternoon both in terms of the weather and the standard of play where Ireland somehow managed to go in at half time 9 – 3 ahead despite having lost three of their starting XV before half an hour was up and not breaking anything bar their own bodies.  As is tradition however, we ultimately surrendered the lead to France in the 70^th minute after three reset scrums on our own try line eventually resulted in Maxime Medard scooting over to score the match’s sole try.  The Irish cause was further hindered when at the next restart, Irish replacement outhalf Ian Madigan booted the ball straight into touch allowing the French to regain possession, stick the ball up the jumper and see out the game.  Quelle dommage as they say.

A far more entertaining spectacle was up next when Scotland travelled to the Millennium (not the Principality on principle) Stadium to take on Wales and try to break their losing duck both against Wales (8 losses in a row) and in general.  Alas, it was only seven minutes before Wales scored their first try with scrum half Gareth Davies grabbing a loose ball and sprinting 50m for the corner.  At this point, I feared Scotland were in for a rough day but then six minutes later they scored a lovely try through Tommy Seymour after Finn Russell sent a lovely chip over the Welsh defence.  7 – 7 game on and what a game it was; a few penalties and 42 minutes later, Scotland were leading 16 – 13  and maybe this time they’d do it.  OK they’re under pressure on their own line but….shit, Jamie Roberts just scored.  OK, it’s 20 – 16 but given how well they’re playing it’s not insurmountable…until an unforgiving North wind breezed through their defence.  Yes George North unfortunately began to find his form again and in the 71^st minute, side stepped several Scottish defenders and cantered down the pitch to put the result beyond doubt.  Duncan Taylor would score for Scotland at the death but the final score was still 27 – 23 to Wales.  It was also reported Jamie Roberts offloaded the ball at some point though I have yet to see video evidence of this.

And finally to England v Italy where even though most of us expected England to win, we didn’t expect it to be such a rout.  Italy are perennial underdogs at this competition but even so, up until about the 55^th minute, the score was still only 11 – 9 to England and I was hoping that I’d see what I’ve always wanted which is to see lots of really tight games and all the participating nations being of a similar level.  However, England decided to spoil it when against the, by this point knackered, Italian team they scored four tries in the last 25 minutes, three of them through Jonathan Joseph and the fourth by Nipples Farrell leaving a rather flattering scoreline of 40 – 9.  I suppose it’s good from an English revival perspective to come away from Rome with such a large points difference but the real test is in a month’s time against Wales because as the RWC showed, they are not in any way intimidated by playing in Twickenham.  That’ll be when we see how far the Eddie Jones regime has come; for those wondering, I wholly expect an injury ravaged and quite frankly boring Irish team to get humped in Twickers in the next round.

Prior to the France v Italy game, it was announced that the usual French police presence at a home international would be more than doubled from 100 to 250 with 200 additional security staff working within the grounds itself.  There was likely enough military firepower within shouting distance of the ground to invade a small country and one could be certain that France were prepared for anything: fanatics with more bombs than sense opposing liberty and equality – got zis, fanatics with too much time on their hands opposing the removal of the accent circumflex– pas de problème , 23 fired up Italians with nothing to lose opposing the idea of them as perpetual underdogs – …..merde.  I will put my hand up and say that I honestly thought the Italians would be stomped and at the moment, I can’t think of a time I’ve been happier to be proven wrong.  The first score came from Italy and wasn’t a try or a penalty, it was a drop goal.  A DROP GOAL!!  Carlo Canna, the 23 year old debutante fly half for Italy who three years ago was a professional policeman, calm as anything, slots it.  France seemed to then get their act together and scored a sweet try in the corner via their sevens convert, Virimi Vakatawa.

Italy refused to lie down however, and following a lineout on the French 5 metre line, their talismanic captain, Sergio Parisse scored a try at the back of a maul.  The sides would go with the score standing at 10 – 8 in France’s favour and after a further try and penalty each, on 74 minutes, it was 21 – 20 in Italy’s favour and you thought they might register a famous win in the Stade Francais.  Alas, a minute later Sergio Parisse incurred a dubious penalty and Jules Plisson, the French no.10 despite being told to come off, insisted on staying on and belted over an almighty 54m penalty from the side of the pitch near the halfway.  Italy however came back and into overtime, they were pounding away inside the French 22, setting up the drop goal attempt and cometh the hour, cometh the man, their talisman, Sergio Parisse.  There stood the no.8 in the pocket striking the ball towards the posts, their sat I thinking I should get bonus points for my no.8 getting a drop goal, there goes the ball for a fairy tale endi….oh wait, no, it’s a horrible kick and is lucky to make it over the goal line, never mind the crossbar.  France win 23 – 21.

Next up was the Calcutta Cup, a fixture going back to 1879 and probably last won by Scotland some time around then.  OK, that’s a cheap shot but England have won it roughly twice as much as Scotland and it has now been eight years since Scotland last held it.  I use the word “held” in the purely metaphorical sense as the actual Calcutta Cup is in such a fragile state that it is kept in a display case at the HQ of whichever union wins it.  Indeed several drunken players played football with it along Princes Street in Edinburgh in 1988, antics for which England No.8 Dean Richards and Scotland flanker John Jeffrey would both receive bans.  Anyhow, as you might expect, both sides went at each other hammer and tongs from the off but alas for Scotland, it wasn’t long before George Kruis stepped through a missed tackle by Richie Gray to stretch over the line and put England a try in front.  Two penalty kicks from Greg Laidlaw would bring Scotland to within a point and make the half-time score 7 – 6. Eleven minutes after the restart, England once again crossed over the line with Jack Nowell dotting down and though Nipples Farrell would miss the conversion, an exchange of penalties would leave the final score at 15 – 9.  Unfortunately, Scotland never really looked like breaching the English line and while England did come away with the win, it wasn’t through dazzling backline moves just good ol’ fashioned bosh.  Though on that point, Billy Vunipola was a deserved man of the match and always seemed to make ground even when taking the ball going backwards.  I swear it would take a concrete wall to stop him at full tilt.  Not much to celebrate for Scotland though and as John Inverdale did not fail to remind viewers (and a nearby seething Andy Nicol) it has now been 504 minutes since Scotland scored a try against England in Murrayfield.  Seriously Andy, next time just beat him senseless on camera with a 2l bottle of Irn-Bru as I can pretty much guarantee you could successfully plead extenuating circumstances plus the majority  of the public would be behind you…literally….you could sell tickets.

Finally to Lansdowne (I refuse to call it the Aviva) where Ireland kicked off their Six Nations defence against Wales.  As always in these fixtures, Ireland came out of the blocks all guns blazing and by thirty minutes into the first half, Ireland were 13 – 0 up.  Then, as also happens in these fixtures, Wales pulled the finger out and started to play and in ten minutes, scored ten points to leave themselves only three points adrift at half time.  Following the restart, they kicked on (without Biggar who’d gone off injured early in the first half – just my fecking luck) and put themselves three points ahead through a further two penalties.  Alas for Wales, in the 75^th minute, they themselves conceded a penalty and allowed Johnny Sexton to draw the match at 16 – 16.  Final result, an anti-climax though I personally think we (Ireland) were lucky to escape with the draw.

There are some days where you just wish that you’d never gotten out of bed, days when you wish that instead of exiting your warm, quilted sanctuary at the harsh squawking of your alarm you’d instead thumbed the off button, rolled over and returned to peaceful slumber.  For me, today was one of those days not least because it was a Sunday and I’d forgotten to turn off my alarm last night but also because it started out badly and then just got worse.  There is a saying about not being able to see past the end of one’s nose which for me is quite literally true; I am very short-sighted and consequently can’t see more than about six inches from my face without the world around me turning into a blurry mush.   Thanks to the wonders of contact lenses, this doesn’t bother me too much however it does mean that before I’ve put said lenses in, I have to deal with some minor inconveniences such as not being able to pee standing up…actually that’s not entirely true, I can pee standing up, I just would rather not have to rely on sound alone to determine that it’s going in the bowl.  Another issue is that I rely on a tactile search of my bedside cabinet to locate my alarm when it goes off in the morning.  Most days this isn’t a problem however there is the odd occasion when the phone gets knocked on the floor along with my contact lens case and, this morning, a glass of water.

Fortunately, after not too much swearing and patting of random bits of sodden floor, I managed to locate the aforementioned objects and climbed back under the covers.  Alas, my peaceful repose was to be shortlived; before I could fall asleep I was faced with that question that has plagued mankind since time immemorial: to pee or not to pee?  Whether ‘tis Nobler in the mind to suffer the pangs and irritation of a small bladder or to give way to a Sea of troubles, and by acquiescing, end them.  You all know what it’s like, it’s cold outside, it’s warm under the covers yet if you don’t obey the call of nature, it might get quite a bit warmer.  Cursing quietly to myself, I took a deep breath and launched myself once more into the chilly air and padded towards the bathroom.  Having sat down and relieved myself, I was slightly alarmed to hear a dripping sound and feel a puddle underneath my heel.  I spent a few seconds trying to work out how I’d missed the bowl from point blank range before common sense made an all too rare foray into my consciousness and told me something wasn’t quite right with my plumbing….the toilet that is, not my….never mind.  I could hear the dripping sound coming from my left and took a punt that it might be the pipe which refills the cistern.  My hunch was confirmed when I gripped the pipe and felt the water leaking between my fingers.  Oh joy, oh rapture I thought as I grabbed my contact lens, popped them in and set about cleaning up the mess.

Several soaked towels and a closed valve later, I’d not fixed the leak but at least isolated the pipe and turned off its water supply. By this point however, I was very much wide awake and didn’t see the point in trying to go back to sleep.  I flicked on the TV only to find out that Sir Terry Wogan, a man who had made the Eurovision actually enjoyable to watch, whose breakfast show I had listened to every day when I worked in Belfast over five years ago, had become the latest high profile entertainer to succumb to cancer.  Yes, I know that amongst all the human suffering that has become such a staple of our daily news broadcasts but at the same time, I’m sorry he’s gone and back in the 70s and 80s when the Irish were getting a bad rep in the mainland UK thanks to the IRAs campaign of violence, he’d been the antithesis to the stereotype of Paddies being car-bombing terrorists, a sentiment which even today, following years of relative peace in Northern Ireland, I occasionally get slagged about.  Therefore, I’d like to end with one of his quips:

“So many things I miss. And, you know, I wouldn’t have missed them for anything.”

I always think it’s funny how something so small can be so deadly but alas, following key hole surgery just over two weeks ago to remove a cancerous growth (and then further surgery to determine why the first surgery had caused such massive complications), my dear Aunt M succumbed to sepsis yesterday leaving behind a husband and four daughters.

My Aunt M was a fantastic woman who never forgot a birthday and always sent a card even if it was something as minor as a driving test passed.  If ever family or a family friend needed somewhere to stay, Aunt M’s door was never closed and she always seemed happy to see you.  With her, my Uncle V and my four cousins, there was never a dull moment and she always had a sense of fun with any excuse for a party or celebration being seized and then some.

It’s a cliche but the world is most certainly a worse place without her however I know that following the ordeal of dialysis and respirators in intensive care, she is at the very least now at peace.

We’ll miss you, Aunt M.

Last Tuesday saw something quite unusual on the Guardian website; in fact, it has been nigh on unheard of for over six months now.  For the first time that I can recall when going to the webpage dealing with the paper’s UK headlines, to my utter amazement there were no articles about Jeremy Corbyn.  Surely this couldn’t be, I thought.  For those of you not au fait with UK politics, this is almost akin to ISIS deciding to promote pacifism and a secular state.  Not a day has gone by since JC’s election to the head of the British Labour Party that there hasn’t been a story or an opinion piece criticising him for being too much to the left, too much to the right, too hardline, too soft, too stubborn or too spineless (though given the sheer number of knives that have been stuck in his back by his own party, he can probably be forgiven for that last one).  Now I know that the guy strikes some as a beardo-weirdo and his opinions and proposed policies are very much to the left of the political spectrum, but that really doesn’t warrant the volume of vitriol that’s been sent his direction by his own party and the mainstream media.  I’m certainly not advocating giving the man a free-pass but I think a balance needs to be struck between coverage of the leader of the opposition and whaling on the nutter in the tweed jacket.

Speaking of nutters, we had yet another fantastic quote from Donald Trump last week when he complained that the NFL had become soft which is a metaphor for the US itself becoming soft.  I believe his complaint concerns the changing of the laws in the NFL to penalise head-on collisions and hence reduce the potential long-term brain injuries that these can cause.  Now to a relatively sane person, this seems like a reasonable proposition given that research on the brains of 165 (dead) people who had played football at high school, college, or professional level found that 131 (79%) of them showed signs of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative disease caused due to repeated concussive events.  Furthermore, of the original 165, 91 were former NFL players and 87 (97%) of those showed evidence of CTE.  You could argue that the results would be skewed as the people most likely to donate their brains to science would be the ones that suspected themselves of having CTE but even so…97%???  Donald may argue that no head-on collisions makes the NFL weak but I’d argue that a settlement between the NFL and retired players made in September 2015 which could potentially see $1bn in compensation payments by the NFL over the next 65 years is probably going to weaken it far more.  There’s one thing that isn’t a bit soft in the NFL, according to Donald, and that’s Tom Brady though it may be a different case for his balls *ahem*

Legal disclaimer: yes, I realise that Tom Brady’s suspension for using under-inflated balls was thrown out by the US federal court following a protracted legal dispute but….meh

Maybe I’m looking at this all wrong though.  Maybe Donald needs people to be soft in the head because I honestly don’t see otherwise how so many US republicans can see this demagogue as a credible future.president.  You can argue that he says what he believes and that’s great….however his beliefs seems to be propagating xenophobic and sectarian stereotypes to appeal to the lowest common denominator which isn’t (Personally, I think this line of reasoning is the same as the one for G W Bush which went that he was the kind of guy you could sit down and have a beer with – I know plenty of people I can sit down and have a beer with but I would trust none of them to run a country on that basis alone).  indeed, it was during a recent drunken stagger home that I started trying to come up with alternate lyrics to Danny Boy for Donald and though the result is fairly dismal, I’m still going to stick it in below:

Oh Donny boy, your rhetoric’s appalling,

Your far right stance, sends shivers down my spine,

Your racsim appears to know no boundaries,

Your sexist views, are from another time

But yet you still are top amongst the GOP,

Despite the slurs, the taunts and bigotry,

But it’s your hair, that is the thing that worries me,

Because it’s what controls your mind, I do believe.