Gifts to the Nation: We Are So Grateful

"Gerry hated above all things the suits upstairs. He loved getting on the wrong side of them and letting them know how much he disliked them."
- Gay Byrne remembering Gerry Ryan this week

"Most people either like me or think I'm a complete bastard. I don't think there is any middle ground and I don't really care."
- Gerry Ryan on himself

By Charley Brady

We got to see a genuine show of people power this week as politician after politician was forced to fall on their swords and relinquish some of the loot that they have been siphoning from us for far too long. Indeed, it probably was less people power than people disgust, as the extent of their shenanigans became widely known.

Indeed, it's pretty surprising that we have any illusions left about these cheap, lousy and arrogant chancers. I can go on and on about the Fianna Fail party but who in hell would you put in their place? I mean, can you imagine the agonies of indecision that you would go through if five of them were stood in front of you and you only had one bullet in the bloody gun?

We'll leave them alone for the moment as the week began and ended with terrible news.

I doubt that anyone was unaffected by news of the brutal and cowardly attack on Natasha McShane in Chicago last week. The twenty- three-year-old Irish girl, who hails from County Armagh, was clubbed into unconsciousness along with her American friend Stacy Jurich. As of this writing she remains in a critical condition and doctors have warned that she may not be able to walk or talk again.

I know that the people of Chicago shared our disgust at the animals responsible for this and the police of that city are to be applauded for their quick arrest of Heriberto Viramontes and Mary Cruz.

Such an appalling attack is of course awful in itself but the thought of her family getting that phone call when their little girl is so far from home just seems to make it worse. Ms. McShane had been studying urban planning at the University of Illinois since January and I can only hope that Viramontes is pleased at how tough he was to - all right, better put in allegedly - use a baseball bat from behind on two innocent girls. Ms. McShane, as if such brutality wasn't already sickening enough, was all of five foot one. Some bloody hero. Himself and his skank of a female accomplice were caught on camera using the stolen credit cards of the two ladies.

We can only wish the very best for them.

And the week ended with something totally unexpected. The sudden death took place of Gerry Ryan, the radio and television star, apparently of a massive heart attack. You either loved Ryan or hated him. He had that kind of effect on people, but he was a guy that you always expected to be there and at the terribly young age of fifty-three had been with RTE for three decades. There's no doubt of the shock that everyone felt at hearing the news, though. Indeed, at first I thought that there must be a mistake.

Personally I often felt like putting the radio through the window when he was on, but I did love the way that he wasn't afraid to put it up to all the right people. I also liked his unapologetic attitude to his high alcohol intake. It never seemed to bother what was a very quick mind, though. As he put it: "The deal I've done with alcohol is this. I'm going to die anyway. What I'm still trying to work out is what condition I want to die in."

There have been, as can be imagined, torrents of words said by his friends and co- workers but I have to say that in particular I found his fellow broadcasters Joe Duffy and Dave Fanning to be very moving in their tributes to someone that they obviously cared for and admired a great deal.

Of course, leave it to Bono to irritate you even on such a day. "I was in very portentous circumstances [when I heard the news]. I'd just walked out of meeting President Obama.

"I'd just got in the car and Catriona, my PA, told me and that was that. [I had] gone from a great meeting where everything seemed possible and I'd risen to a very different reality."

Jeez, that guy can really set your teeth on edge, no matter the occasion.

Dominating the week in between we had our noses rubbed in it again by the sheer extent of what our rotten politicians have been getting away with. The ball got rolling with Maire Geoghegan-Quinn looking absolutely disgusted as to why one of the riff-raff dared question her €108,000 a year pension when she is working, not even sixty yet and earning €243,000 a year from her gravy train European Commissioner earner.

Man, she looked as mad as Kathy Bates in "Misery" (in fact there's a bit of a resemblance if the talented Ms. Bates fancies playing an arrogant grasping chancer) when one of the media scum that she has do deal with suggested that she might think about giving it up. After all, the rest of we poor sods have been put to the pin of our collars with cut backs that are supposed to make us feel more patriotic as opposed to just more broke.

In fact Maire Greedy-Quinn looked as if this member of the lower orders had just let a sneaky one off and tried to blame it on her when she proclaimed from her high perch: "Well, that's a question that I've refused to comment on up to now and I'll continue to refuse to comment."

Oh dear. That wasn't very smart, Missus. You see, even a people as down-trodden as the Irish don't like being made COMPLETE eejits of. Thus did the walls come tumbling down as more digging was done and lo and behold, there was our old pal Weasely Bertie Ahern, the Man of the People who doesn't give a rat's ass about money - except that he's awful good at accumulating it. And since I'm mixing metaphors anyway let's just say that he's awfully handy at squirreling the damned stuff away. It just seems to cling to the poor soul. He can't help it. So there he was, standing blinking in the limelight and refusing to give up his €83,000 a year pension even though he's still - ahem - working.

Her fellow cronies must have been rightly teed off with Greedy-Quinn as out it all came. There was Ruiri Quinn and Rory O'Hanlon blinking in the light; there was Frank Daley of the National Asset Management Agency with a State pension of €110,000 a year on top of his rather tasty €170,000 - oh yeah, and his tax-free €330,000 kiss off from his previous gig two years ago; and who's that over there other than Jim McDaid, who is at the time of writing still refusing to give his pension up "as a matter of principle".

Principle? From one of these gougers? Surely an oxymoron. McDaid is so principled that he's best known for his arrest on a charge of being so bloody drunk that he was driving the wrong way up a motorway! If he had hit and maimed someone I hope that said person would be happy that he had been put in a wheelchair or worse by a man of principle.

Of the more than a dozen graspers that we know of all but three have been shamed by the sheer disgust of the public that the ill-gotten loot has been handed back. Not retroactively of course. Just stopped as of now.

Of course the hilarity doesn't end there. Greedy- Quinn says that she is giving it up as a "gift to the nation". Translation: "I was caught with my big greedy snout in the trough."

Not to be outdone Bertie too has relinquished his pension. OK, he was bleeding from the gums and anus and he looked as if he was about to suffer from a massive brain embolism, but he did manage to stutter out that his, too, was a "gift".

Honestly, if it wasn't so sordid and pathetic, it would be funny.

Finally, thanks for the, uh, interesting response to last week's rant. Maybe "thanks" isn't quite the word I'm looking for. By the way, to the two wags who wondered if the photo on the internet column (Linda Blair in full demonic make-up from "The Exorcist") was my dear self, I have to tell you that I'm a hell of a lot uglier than that. Also, I have horns, a long pointy tail and cloven hoofs.

I might just have to reverse my idea that there is no God, however. I've been looking at some photos of "Mad Men" actress Christina Hendricks-there may have been a little drool rolling down my chin - and I gotta tell you: if that body isn't a perfect case of intelligent design then I don't know what is. Christina, if you are ever crazy enough to desire the spawn of Brady then my email address is below.

Hope to see you all next week.

Same bat-time!

Same bat-channel!

You can reach Charley at chasbrady7@eircom.net