Dustin Hoffman Has A Lot To Answer For

"Well here's to you Mrs. Robinson/ Heaven loves you more than you will know".
"Are you trying to seduce me, Mrs. Robinson?"
- need I say it "The Graduate".

By Charley Brady

There are a few great things about writing this column (not the money, that's for sure): I love the feedback I get from readers, for instance. There are too many to mention but in particular a big "hello" to Maureen in Chicago; the foul mouthed but rather wonderful Mike in Oz-land; the delicious goddess Alicia in New York (like nearly everyone else mentioned here I've never met her but I'm just guessing from her wonderful writing); Maeve of course; Rory in Miami (thanks again for the hospital visit - a story I might even tell one day); and of course Niall Rochford, manager of Ireland's most spectacular hotel, Ashford Castle - don't take my word for it, the plaudits that he and his team win speak for themselves.

It is truly the business.

By the way, Niall, why is it that you are always conspicuous by your absence when I visit? I mean, come on, I don't need another reason to be paranoid.

Is it my Hai Karate after shave? Let me tell you, that was very popular when I bought it in the 70s!

Unfortunately, along with the emails that these folks send me there are always the nutters. Two of them crawled out of whatever sad little box they live in this week to say how much they were looking forward to me being sarcastic about Brian "the Wig" Lenihan this week.

I'm really (not) sorry to disappoint you - in fact at first I thought it was a joke - but now that it's hit me that you are serious then firstly: why would I make fun of the guy's illness?

That just seems to me like a lousy thing to do. He has said what he suffering from and that's it as far as I'm concerned. I don't like his policies and that's for sure but as another human being I just don't get all the jokes going around about it.

Secondly, I don't want either of you to email me again and that goes in particular for Clown Number Two who reckons that we are "soul mates". We've never met, you bloody idiot and even if we unfortunately did collide in the street I'd rather be soulmates with out and out horrors like Kerry Katona or Paris Hilton - or even, God forbid, Katie Price.

If I really wanted a soul mate it would be the divine actresses Jessica Lange or Meryl Streep and that seems kind of unlikely after the restraining order that they took out against me.

So bugger off.

And another guy that I would say the same to is our ex-beloved leader Bertie Ahern. As predicted in these pages he got the tax break on his work of fiction about his life.

No surprise there. This "Man of the People" is now paying no tax on his earnings from the book, just the same as his millionaire daughter.

Hey, it's Ireland!

Meanwhile, this side of the border we have Minister for Transport Noel Dempsey returning from his sunshine break in Malta.

He swanned in to a country that is still at a standstill because we have no salt or grit to sand our roads with during this snow spell that this country has just not been able for due to the fact that our leaders don't give a damn about the elderly who are marooned in their own houses, depending on their neighbours to do the shopping for them because - let's face it - if they fell and broke a hip they would be waiting in hospital corridors long enough for Health Minister Mary Harney to lose weight.

His answer to why he wasn't here was typical Fianna Fail aristocratic arrogance. He said that even if he had been here he would have been useless as ministers didn't go out and personally grit roads.

To contradict him: we have councillor Malachy Noone of (and it kills me to say this, of Fianna Fail) Claregalway who was literally on his hands and knees for a week during the recent floods as he filled sandbags, visited the elderly with supplies and just all-round showed himself to be a good guy by his Trojan efforts which were devoid of any fanfare.

Filling sandbags doesn't fall into his remit either, Dempsey, but he got his Wellington boots on anyway and got stuck in there because these were the people that voted for him.

Kudos to Councillor Noone.

I'm trying unsuccessfully to put off mentioning Mrs. Robinson for the moment so can I just mention "Avatar" again?

Typical. I actually say something nice last week about a film that I found strangely uplifting and the Vatican's official newspaper "L'Osservatore Romano" puts out a statement on how that fine upstanding bunch of frock-wearing weenies felt about it.

"Technology without emotion" they whimpered in their closeted little world. Pity that they hadn't been so quick with a reply to the questions being asked in Ireland about the numerous child rapists in their midst.

But no; slagging off Harry Potter and James Cameron's vision of utter beauty is way higher in their priorities.

I was only half an hour into the movie when I forgot that it was digital manipulation and accepted the tree- huggers as completely sympathetic.

"It had numerous captivating special effects but little true emotion, that is human emotion. Visually there is impact but the plot is stale", said our stalwarts in the Vatican.

Are you sure that you bunch of "umpteen fishes from a little basket" believers are talking about the same film? Are you not getting kind of confused in your 2,000-year-old age with your own special effects of a man who can walk on water, cure blindness, leprosy and whatever you're having yourself?

It's a film. And to tell you the truth I found it better than anything that I ever read in The Bible. The difference is that I know that it is fiction, a concept that you lot seem to have a difficulty coming to terms with.

Okay, Iris Robinson: I wrote in this paper eighteen months ago about her disgusting, outdated and nonsensical bull concerning homosexuals. These guys and gals are now big enough to handle that kind of antediluvian rubbish themselves without me defending them.

But as a heterosexual man (and let's be honest here, Mrs. Robinson is a good-looking woman - ah, to be nineteen again) I just found her comments to be disgusting. Not quite as disgusting as her husband Peter Robinson, First Minister, backing her up but then my views are always coloured - no pun intended - by his comment when he was asked if he would be supporting the Republic of Ireland in the World Cup: "I wouldn't support the Republic in anything" he laughed before adding: "I even hear that they have darkies playing for them now."

So let's see if I have this right: you evangelical fruitcakes don't like "darkies" or homosexuals, although as the upstanding Mrs. Robinson says the latter can be "cured by washing in the blood of Christ."

There's a problem here though. You don't set yourself up as morally superior to the rest of we little sinners when you're having it away at the age of 59 with a 19-year-old.

Good old Peter said in his hilariously stage managed press conference with four hand-picked journalists that he knows - knows, mind you - that God has forgiven her.

So now these two overpaid hypocrites even have a land line to Jesus himself.

Ah well, that's the rest of we poor sinners put out to grass for sure.

I would ask Mrs. Robinson to look up one thing though, since herself and Peter believe in the fundamentalist nonsense of the Bible. Take a look at the Book of Leviticus (my favourite piece of insanity from the Old Testament.

You'll find that adulterers should be killed. No if's or but's: killed.

Do you still feel like preaching to we poor sinners now, Mrs. Robinson?

Hopefully, Leviticus, Allah, Buddha, Lobsang Rampa, Jesus and Mrs. Robinson, Gerry Adams and all the King's Men willing I'll be back with you next week.

Same bat-time!

Same bat-channel!

You can reach Charley at chasbrady7@eircom.net