Anybody Know A Good Bent Lawyer? I'm Suing This Newspaper!

"This is the moment when one thinks that he has gone completely mad." - the great Gore Vidal.

By Charley Brady

There must be something in the water here at the moment. Well, that is for those of us who are lucky enough to have water at the moment. After all, we had a cold spell at Christmas and many all over the country still don't have any water at all; so it can't be that.

Third world countries can deal with a cold spell, but not Ireland. We have bigger priorities. You know, like giving shed loads of loot to politicians who aren't doing a damned thing except claiming their expenses.

For what, no one seems to know but what we do know is that their pig- snouts are stuck in the trough all the time. And since this is a nation of wimps no one is ever likely to see the inside of a prison cell.

Maybe it's the full moon that has brought out so many whinging crybabies.

I'm not exempt, mind you: I'm told that my moods swing according to the moon. I wasn't even aware of that. I simply thought that I was moody, grumpy and basically detested the world 52 weeks of the year. It's good to know that now and again I'm sane. Maybe one of these days the nurses will take the restrainers off me.

And yet apparently this isn't so. It seems that I've been known to crack the room up at parties. I have been told this by several reliable sources. Although they were also in strait jackets so may not be dependable.

Oh no! Was that politically incorrect?

I don't believe what they said though, as going to a party would inevitably mean talking to humans and that's not really on my agenda.

Well, unless I was really, really drunk.

But judging from this week's shenanigan's in politics I'm not the only one that has been feeling grumpy lately.

Celebrity economic journalist turned pundit for the Fine Gael party, Mister George Lee got himself into a frightful hissy fit this week and resigned because he had been a member of the party for a whole eight months - yes, that's right, a whole eight months - and so resigned because the men and women who had been there for years in order to build up their credentials just wouldn't recognise his amazing talents.

Hell, George, it must have been just awful for you to find that you had to submit a paper or two and - gasp - maybe even join your colleagues for a bit of after hours banter in the staff canteen.

But no: having had everything served to you on a silver platter by your previous - and because of the nature of our weird political system - ongoing employers at RTE you just couldn't hack it, could you?

You have spent almost a week now in whining and moaning about how your great talents were simply not recognised by the philistines of FG.

Still, you got out of it just in time as in another few months you wouldn't have been able to crawl back to your television job. Or was it because it had dawned on you that your lucrative - and as far as I'm concerned, totally undeserved - salary of €158,000 a year for our beloved National Broadcaster was a little bit more enticing than your €92,000 a year TDs salary.

Never mind. For sleazing out of the party that you were going to apparently change utterly and save the universe in the bargain you get a nice severance pay of ten and a half grand.

Not bad for eight months of doing bugger all; but I don't blame you. If I too didn't have a spine I'd probably have done the same thing.

Get off your high horse about not being treated right. You never earned your stripes in the first place; you were just somebody that, inexplicably, the public believed was going to change things.

Well, apart from disillusioning the 27,000 (from one constituency - not too shabby) voters who fell for your old gumph and the many who gave their time to campaigning for you (and no, dear reader, I wasn't one of them) and putting your two secretaries out of work what exactly do you expect to do when you return to a broadcasting channel that is supposed to be impartial?

I mean, how can you be impartial when you gave your allegiance - for all that it turned out to be worth - to ANY political party.

Yeah, I know that your contract allows you to go back now that you have weaselled out of a challenge, but here's hoping that you are presenting the weather reports.

Of course, that is if it doesn't mean taking over from the utterly divine Jean Byrne. I would gladly sacrifice your life just to say "hello" to her and after that, of course, destiny would take its course.

What? Oh sorry, editor, blacked out into a fantasy of Ms. Byrne there for a moment.

Now where was I?

It's kind of ironic that another Irish cry-baby journalist, Charlie Bird, was at George Lee's celebrations when the enormous story of Michael Jackson's death hit the circuits and he made the decision to stay in Ireland after all of the world's press descended on America just in order to cover it.

Bird of Kuwait (reporting on the Gulf War from a very safe distance) was given the job that most TV journalists would sell a testicle for - not necessarily theirs, of course - to get a lucrative job like Washington Correspondent. Not bad, one would have thought.

Not to Bird of the Amazon, though (affectionately known as this after his run in with a bug in his tent: calm down, Charlie, there was no need to call in your minder: it was only a freaking bug and you were in the Amazon after all).

No, as Charlie Bird explained to us about his misery and loneliness in America in a ridiculous two- part documentary about - yes - his misery and loneliness in America: "Charlie Bird in Ireland was used to calling people up and they knew who he was. In Washington nobody knows who Charlie Bird is."

And yes, he really does speak that way.

He's coming back here now to RTE, since he couldn't hack it in Washington, hopefully to report on the weather with his fellow cry baby Lee. Just remember: stay away from Jean Byrne [OK, you're blacking out again - Ed].

He proclaimed that he was "lonely" while being followed around by a full camera crew before whining that he was now - sob - sixty years old.

A couple of things here, Bird of the Arctic - where he found that the weather was "very cold" - I'm not even a tenth of the way on the rung that you've climbed up but what did you expect exactly?

Jeez, I never expect to be liked and if I am it's just a bonus.

As for, sob - "I'm sixty", take a look at Nelson Mandela and see if he's whining about being 91.

Here's another cry baby that takes the biscuit and the entire cake shop as well. It also leads on rather nicely from last week where I said that we have the right to shoot bastards that have broken into our property and are stealing what we worked for.

This thief actually had the gall to text photos of his injuries to Thursday's "Irish Daily Star".

This really is the moment when one thinks that he has gone completely mad.

Here we go: the newspaper said on Tuesday that farmer John Fleming of Annagh in Gorey was coming back to the home that he shares with his 72- year old parents Paddy and Maura, when he saw this miserable piece of bottom- feeding scum legging it with a mate of his into John Fleming's car.

John said: "It was a big fright because obviously my parents would have been on my mind.

"One of the thieves was actually in my car and had started it up.

"As luck would have it I had the shotgun with me so I stood to one side in front of the car and told him to get out. But he didn't. Instead he backed up and took off...whatever happened, the gun went off. It was reflexive."

Note to thieving scumbags: a lot of farmers in isolated areas now feel the need to carry guns. Can you blame them, with vermin like you around?

That's not the way that this rat bag saw it, naturally. Accompanying the photos that he texted to the newspaper he felt that he just had to add:

"Fair enough, I was driving it down the road because I wanted to take petrol, but I didn't deserve to get shot.

"All I heard was a bang and the blast blew in the passenger side. For God's sake he could have hit me in the head."

Stifling a few sobs he then added: "I didn't deserve to be shot. I wasn't armed.

"He hit me with 100 pellets in my arm and another 17 hit me in the chest. I couldn't sleep last night, I was so stressed - I can't hug my wife."

I know that it sounds like it, but I'm not making this up: the thieving bastard had to explain to his wife that he couldn't hug her. Well, he may be an ignorant piece of flotsam but at least he was able to count the pellets that were dug out of him.

Jeez, mate, I surely hope that it didn't hurt too much.

On a personal level I'm only sorry that Mr. Fleming didn't have bullets in there.

And before the Usual Suspects get their little claws out this is of course MY view and not necessarily the views of the "Examiner".

Like I say, it's just been one of those weeks for cry babies: we even have a Galway man here who served in the Lebanon and guess what? He's suing the State for being shot at! Imagine that.

What part of "I am signing up as a soldier" did he not understand?

Listen, it's about time that I laid down the law to my editor Graham and publisher Paddy that I didn't really understand when I signed up for this gig that I could damage my little pinkie while writing this. Admittedly I was drunk at the time, but come on!

Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome, anybody?

I'm looking for a good bent lawyer to take on my case.

And while I'm at it, my old man was in the navy and he wasn't all that crazy about water. He even got wet once. And I don't mean in a good way.

If there is anyone with an ounce of decency at New York Legal please contact me at the email below and we will take these ruthless swine to the cleaners.

And to Jean Byrne: I loved that gothic outfit you had on last night. No, I'm not being sexist. It simply enhanced my enjoyment of watching weather reports.

Is there a law against that... yet?

If I still have a column next week then I hope to see you all.

Same bat-time!

Same bat-channel!

You can reach Charley at chasbrady7@eircom.net