I Blush To Think Upon This Ignominy

"I'm not saying that pacifism is unmanly. Pacifism may even be the highest form of manliness. What I'm saying is that if someone cuts off your left hand with an axe, then you don't offer him your right one. Not if you want to play the piano again, you don't."
- Film director Sam Peckinpah (1925-1984)

By Charley Brady

That whirring sound that you hear? Come on, you know what it is; you know what it signifies.

It is the spirits of our Celtic ancestors revolving at an awful rate in their coffins and their mounds after witnessing the disgrace that was Ireland's "Late Late Show" on Friday night, where we saw an entire audience sucking up to and laughing at the inane jokes of a politician who resigned in disgrace but is now back to plug his autobiography.

He helped to cut our left hand off and now we laughingly offer him our right one.

And we pay €27 per copy for his work of fiction and alternative history that is passing itself off as an autobiography.

Yes, it's man-of-the-people Bertie Ahern.

I suppose that it is a theme that has run through these columns and yet I still can't get my head around it.

Why are you so in awe of the people that work or did work for you, even though they have proved themselves time and again to be venal, grasping, ignorant spongers?

YOU EMPLOYED THEM. THEY WORK FOR YOU.

I have often been told that I would get more work in Ireland (and let's be honest, that would be nice since I live here) if I toned it down a bit and played the game a little better. Play the game? I can't see that happening.

Mainly because the people that I would in the main have to play the game with are the self- same dipsticks that I despise - and who also despise me.

Why would I wish to suck up to the kind of sheep who were clapping their little paws last night whenever the fraud and liar Bertie Ahern gave his "man of the people" lopsided grin.

And you all fell for it.

Anyway...

I normally would have better things to do on a Friday night - you know, sacrifice a lamb to Satan, give homage to Morningstar - all the things that some of the weirdo's who contact me seem to think I'm about.

Instead I'm watching Bertie Ahern being given an unbelievably soft ride by TV host Ryan Tubridy.

Jeez Ryan, why didn't you just give him the floor altogether so that he could get on with his pitch as to why he should be Ireland's next President?

If I was ever ashamed to have a drop of Celtic blood in me then it was last night. The Irish audience sat there and applauded a creep who didn't even have the decency to make eye contact with the man who was interviewing him

Instead, he was cynically gauging the audience for their reaction.

Ahern, you did well.

If you had announced that you were running for the Presidency that moment then you would have been a shoe-in.

Two people in the audience were a very pleasant couple that I know and like: this time last week they were giving out yards regarding Ahern and yet there they were last night clapping their flippers together every time he made a weak joke. But we're not all suckers, Ahern.

I was watching the way that you dealt with your book launch. Under the guise of being polite you ripped the heart out of your successor. You only, in fact, stopped short of saying in front of his face that he was an ignorant muck- savage while you were the sophisticated (and yet man of the people) saviour of the nation, from Dublin.

I don't have much time for Brian Cowen but for crying out loud he turned up for your miserable ghost-written self-serving book. Did you HAVE to humiliate the guy?

You dressed it up well by saying that he had a "different work ethic" to you and Charlie McCreevy, before going on to say that the country was in fine hands when you two were running it.

And as I write this I've got half an eye on you being interviewed on Sky News this morning. How nice to know that you are rooting for Tony Blair to be our boss in Europe. "He's a great friend of Ireland's and a great friend of mine."

Pass me the sick bucket, you solipsistic toe-rag.

Personally I feel that since we have sold our souls to Lisbon we deserve to have Blair lording it over us. We certainly are not a country that can hold the head high any more. We're bought and paid for.

Still, nice to see Bertie's good friend Blair looking shaken and stirred on Friday. He actually had the bloody nerve to turn up at a commemoration service for victims of the war in Iraq. He was insensitive enough to hold his hand out to be shaken by Peter Brierley, who had lost his son Shaun due to Blair's war-mongering. Instead of a handshake he had Mr. Brierley yelling at him: "Don't you dare! You have my son's blood on your hands."

Needless to say the words were no sooner out of his mouth than three of Blair's goons were on top of him, dragging him away from Ireland's future President. Nice one, Tony. If that's the way that your bodyguard thugs treat the 59-year-old father of a dead war hero then we in Ireland know what to expect. Why not? When we voted "Yes" we voted for you and your like.

The only thing that surprised me about the incident was that you didn't have six of your bodyguards jump the poor devil.

Mr. Brierley later said: "That man is a war criminal. I can't take being in the same room as him. I cannot believe he's been allowed to come to this reception.

"I sat through that service listening to people preaching to me about tolerance but I don't think that anyone should have to tolerate being in the same room as him. I believe he's got the blood of my son - and all of the other men and women who have died in that war - on his hands."

There you go, Tony: you're a good Christian - after all you give lessons on your beliefs-there's something else for you to pray about.

Was being George Bush's pet dog really worth it in the end?

Meanwhile back at the ranch Ahern, the Prime Minister who won all of his money on the nags - honest, Your Honour - is defending another beauty. Yes, where would the week be without Junket John O'Donoghue, still trying to hold on like Grim Death.

[Actually he's finally fallen off the twig since I wrote this. Mind the door doesn't bang your fat ass on the way out, Johnny.]

According to Ahern he is a great man who actually doesn't like to travel (!) and had to force himself to take all of those trips for the sake of Ireland.

Ahern also defended John's free-loading wife Kate Ann and her need to travel everywhere with her beloved. It gets lonely when you're working away from home, according to the "News of the World's" sports commentator and ex- Taoiseach.

Well, here's the thing, Bertie. I did travel work for almost five years, visiting some twenty countries. It was a great life, with all expenses paid.

No complaints there, but I can imagine the looks that I would have got if I had asked them to pay for my partner to come as well, just in case I got lonely, God help us.

My friend Ian works five weeks on and five weeks off in Yemen. Wonder if he should ask if he can bring his wife next time.

No, only in the corrupt world of Irish politics would we see gougers EXPECTING IT AS THEIR RIGHT to take their significant others on trips paid for by the taxpayer. Slap "official function" in front of something and you're away on a hack.

It doesn't even have to be abroad. Kate Ann Freeload took no less than 25 trips by air between Dublin and Kerry over a two-year period. My personal favourite, though, just has to be when the poor darling wanted breakfast in bed in a Vienna hotel room (as you do). Cost to the taxpayer for breakfast for one? €91, I kid you not.

Still, she didn't get her sense of entitlement off the road. Her dear husband actually claimed expenses back on £1 - which he had given to a Scottish children's charity.

Yes, you read that correctly: he claimed back ONE POUND that he had selflessly given to charity. What a big-hearted guy!

I'm sick and tired of thieves and their expense accounts so I'm going to gloss over and keep for another day the reports that Death's Head Morticia Typhoid Mary Harney of the Health Service has spent €750,000 on jets in the last two years.

I just can't be bothered at the moment. We give them the right hand to chop off as well, you see.

The Celtic spirit no longer fights against what is just plain wrong. Instead we ignore the fact that a school in Cork last week asked students to bring in their OWN TOILET PAPER because it was a toss- up between hygiene and buying books.

We should be utterly ashamed of ourselves.

But no, instead we are facing a blanket water tax of €175 a year until they can fit us with meters to let us pay for one of the basic sustainers of life - and to rub salt into the wounds we can't even drink tap water in Galway in the first place!

But there they were on Friday, applauding a disgraced Ahern and forgetting that this is the man who famously said that people like myself who complain about our economy should "just go off and commit suicide".

Since the suicide rate amongst (primarily) men in my age group of late forties- early fifties has risen dramatically you got your wish, didn't you, you bloody ghoul?

In Ireland we respond to serious issues by seeing the Virgin Mary appearing all over the place.

I'm not normally interested in the hallucinations of mad people but yesterday at Knock thousands turned up to see a vision in the sky dancing around the sun.

Well, that's okay then. As long as it takes your minds from the real problems. Let's end on a light note.

I'm puzzled (although don't really care) about President Obama getting the Nobel Peace Prize. What the hell is that about?

I lost any feeling for the Prize when that party-going windbag Henry Kissinger got it in 1973 (maybe you need to have an illegal war going on when you receive it); and I definitely stopped giving it any kind of credence when that ghastly old fraud Mother Teresa hooked it in 1979.

You remember Mother, don't you? The saint on earth who was guilty of so many acts of utter cruelty towards her fellow human beings?

There's too much to say about that piece of nastiness, but I'll just mention my personal favourite: during the second Irish Divorce Referendum Mother went to Britain to plead for a divorce for her friend Princess Diana and then in the same WEEK pleaded with the Irish to never allow divorce into their country under any circumstances

Same old story: it's one rule for the British Royalty and another rule for the Irish peasants.

If I'm not struck by a divine bolt of righteous lightning in the meantime then I hope see you all again next week.

Same bat-time!

Same bat-channel!

You can reach Charley at chasbrady7@eircom.net