Next Week: Things That I Actually Like; But For Now...

"I'm selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best."
- Marilyn Monroe.

By Charley Brady

Obviously the main news at the moment of writing this is Israel and the repercussions of what may have been a pretty ill thought out plan, if you could call it a plan at all.

Just to nail my colours to the mast: I've never been a huge fan of Israel's handling of things in the past years. The term "The jackboot is now on the other foot" comes to mind; but this time I'm on their side. If that makes me enemies amongst the chattering classes who only know of such things by being armchair warriors who have never travelled the length of their living-death rooms then so be it.

We'll get back to that.

I'm writing this on Wednesday June 2 (which must be a shock to the editor as he's used to me getting my copy out at the last minute) but intend to update as the week moves on.

Of course with the manner and speed with which things change, the opening paragraph is already hopelessly out of date with the news coming in of the atrocity in England's beautiful Cumbria region. If you have never been in the Lake District then I can only say that it is as close to giving you a sense of peace as you can get in this world.

We should be almost numb at this stage to reports of guys who just lose the plot and decide that since they're going to kill themselves anyway, why not take as many with them as possible. As of this time a taxi driver has killed 12 people and injured 25 others, leaving three in critical condition.

Yes, of course he killed himself at the end. Well, these guys always do, don't they?

It's Hungerford in England and Dunblane in Scotland all over again.

There's no reason for it, really, and heaven knows you in America have had more than your fair share of random killings by spineless wimps with access to guns. I can never understand why they don't just blow their own heads off, if that's their thing, without having to leave pure grief behind them. It just doesn't seem to work that way.

I don't know who first said it but I agree wholeheartedly with him: "If there was a race to join other than the human race then I would join it."

I suppose that if this murderous clown hadn't taken that way out then the Human Rights Brigade would be fretting by now about how he would be treated in jail.

Here in Ireland on this most awful of days we have a thing called Michael Murray. And before I go on, to save the editor the trouble, these views are mine alone so if I upset any of the liberal crowd then sue me, not the paper.

Let's call Murray what he is: a multiple rapist who should have had the decency (ha! that's a good one!) to have killed himself in utter shame for his crimes; but this is the real world so instead he and his "legal team" - and how do those rats live with themselves - have instead decided to go after several newspapers who have left him depressed and with high blood pressure.

You see, the newspapers think that it is right and proper to show this creature's photograph and to tell you where it is living; and I agree wholeheartedly with that.

I don't want this toe-rag living next door to me. For crying out loud, there's a crèche close by and I may not be a fan of children but I don't want them harmed either.

I feel that even as a single bloke I have the right to know where this lowlife is and if that goes for me then it goes tenfold for those with families.

His human rights? HIS? Screw them!

Well, you know what? Maybe I should be suing this guy because every time I look at this thing's ignorant sub- human face MY blood pressure goes through the roof!

He was jailed for eight and a half years in Britain, for rape. That was 1989. Let loose in 1995 (well, he had served his sentence after all) he hit the streets of Dublin where he raped four women in six days. He also sexually assaulted two others. The details, to me, go beyond rape, if there is such a thing, so I won't go into them.

He also indecently exposed himself in front of a three-year-old child, which made me wonder is there a way to DECENTLY expose yourself to a baby?

He was given ten 18-year sentences and three three-year sentences in 1996 but of course this is Ireland so they ran concurrently and with time off for blah blah blah OF COURSE HE WAS BACK ON THE SREETS - AGAIN - last year and immediately began whining, even though most of the rapes were committed while he was waiting for the Director of Public Prosecutions here to make a decision on him.

Well, let's face it, you might as well be waiting for King Canute to turn the tide back than to wait for the DPP to make a judgment.

Murray gave a written statement to Miss Justice Mary Irvine yesterday (June 1) where he whinged that he was "unable to establish and enjoy any permanence of dwelling" and was "reluctant to stay too long in one place for fear of being recognised and attacked."

Did you hear that? HE was afraid of being attacked.

Well, do you know something, scumbag? My heart just bleeds all over the place at the thought of YOU, who brutally, to put it mildly, raped four women in six days, being attacked.

It goes on: "I have been unable as a result of activities of the newspapers to reside in places I've been put in by the probation service. I complied fully with the terms of the contract. The said contract became inoperable by reason of the publicity surrounding me. I have made every effort to comply with the requirements [of the Sex Offenders Act 2001]. This has become very difficult by reason of the actions of the defendants [the newspapers that he is hoping to claim damages from, in other words]."

Well, leaving aside the fact that it obviously didn't write this itself, can I just ask how it can even possibly be engaging with a "legal team"?

Hey, I've an idea: I'm in a spot of trouble at the moment over my television license. Can I engage Paul O'Higgins Senior Council for Murray to represent me? Of course, I can't afford to pay you but you seem to really care for the rights of the downtrodden. It's just a thought.

June 3: The continuing sadness from the Cumberland massacre: we have the usual bunch of criminologists dressing things up in words that might as well have come from the psychobabble of the Dr. Phil Show. We also have the Usual Suspects who are willing to tell any channel that will listen to them about what they saw. You can always tell the frauds and you can always tell the genuine: the latter seem stunned, the former smugly telling about what they did over and over while proclaiming loudly that they feel terrible about "having" to give so many interviews.

For once I find myself agreeing with Bob Geldof: "He can see no reasons/ for there are no reasons..."

Meanwhile, what should have been a no-brainer comes in the form of the creature Michael Murray, mentioned above. The judge has put off for two weeks the finding on whether this serial rapist aberration of nature will win his case against the newspapers that have made his wonderful, example to us all, life such a misery and contributed to his stress and high blood pressure.

So we have to wait another two weeks. I couldn't possibly say this of course but may I quote from a seventy-year-old man who spoke for all of us in "The Olde Brewery" tonight: "I hope to Christ and God forgive me but I hope the swine dies of his blood pressure before the outcome."

There was no one who argued with that.

June 4: I had thought that I might be a lone voice here, siding with Israel, since there are demonstrations planned, members of Fianna Fail calling for the Israeli ambassador to be booted out of this great democracy of ours, the Trade Union Movement calling for embargoes against Israel... you gotta admit, these dopes really don't have a sense of irony at all.

And of course Sinn Féin, those fine upstanding fighters for freedom everywhere who have never done a bad thing in their lives - apart from kneecappings, torturing men and women and blowing people to smithereens in the name of freedom - well, of COURSE they're screaming indignation as well.

Even though it's kind of hard to stun me at this stage I must say that when I saw the footage of the peace activists laying into the Israelis hell for leather with iron bars that just happened to be on hand at the time and then booting one of them overboard I thought that I was in my local of a Monday afternoon (just kidding, Brendan).

Anyway, instead of me being on my lonesome with my views as usual, along comes Kevin Myers of the Irish Independent who - despite the fact that he drives me crazy at times, and not in a good way - managed to put it perfectly:

"Every single feature of the Israel operation was wrong. I say this as a friend of Israel. There is barely a better way of way of putting your men in danger than by dropping them slowly, one by one, from helicopters into the waiting arms of Islamicists. And that's what the Turkish-Arab boat largely consisted of.

"Did you see the headgear on Al Jazeera TV news BEFORE the assault? Did you hear what they were singing?

"Passengers on the Turkish vessel chanted: "Remember Khairbar, Khairbar, O Jews, the Army of Mohammed will return." This was a reference to the prophet's seizure of a Jewish-held oasis, the last Jewish settlement in Arabia.

"Most of the Jews were slaughtered and their leader was captured. He was tied down and a fire lit on his chest and, just before death, was beheaded. His wife was then forcibly "married" to Mohammed. This is the event that some of the Gaza 'peace mission' - though obviously not the Irish-were celebrating in song."

Before I go back to Mr. Myers I just want to say that I am just plain tired of being treated like an eejit in this country. The Irish and the Scots, the Welsh and, yes, the English, are too mild-mannered for their own good.

Anyone who reads these columns on a regular basis knows that I've always had a hell of a lot of time for the Polish who were welcomed to Ireland but when I hear that they are now putting up signs in Poland's building sites that say "No Irish Need Apply", then I just think that is time to close the borders.

I asked a Polish acquaintance today what the hell they were thinking of and the answer was: "Yes, but..." That was the answer and that is no answer at all.

I am just sick and tired of trying to do the right thing here. We make excuses for junkies who kill because they need their fix; we make excuses for rapists and murderers because they had a hard time of it when they were kids and Society is to blame. I'll say it once again: I don't f*****g care what their story is. Me, and most people like me, just want to live our lives quietly in our own little way.

Back to Mr. Myers:

"It's time to grasp the gravity of what's going on here. Turkey is rapidly departing from secular sates and moving towards Islamicism [may I just add, Kevin, that they are next in line to join the European Union?] Turkey is now closer to Iran than it has ever been since the Shah was overthrown. And Turkey's closest ally in the Arab world is now Syria, which is in a state of permanent war with Israel.

"Hamas provides the elected government of Gaza. It is effectively a neo-Nazi movement, whose policy is to kill Israelis.

"Most sinister of all, Sunni Hamas is being armed by Shia Iran. That's the reason for the Israeli blockade. Are the Israelis to allow open borders to a state that fired 8,000 rockets into their towns?

"Would you, if you had such a neighbour? ...

"Governments come and go in Israel. But in Gaza, Hamas has destroyed the power of the Fatah movement by murdering its leaders, scores of them, ruthlessly and methodically, without protest from 'the international community'."

I would have said that this says it all except for a very interesting email I received, and I'll quote it in part:

"I see that that the Israelis were an easy target as usual for the lefties of Ireland and other democracies over the storming of the ship. Here is a civilized country surrounded by corrupt, tyrannical Muslim societies who glorify terrorism, yet the lefties never seem to notice Palestinian and other horrific atrocities.

"Having been to Israel serving with the Irish army in Lebanon I found the country not only beautiful but the people friendly, yet for some reason they seem to have no allies apart from the so-called Great Satan that they call the USA.

"I just can't get my head around how people of Western Europe could have this mindset. It's almost PC and oh so cool to be anti-USA and anti-Israel. The Israelis are quite entitled to have a siege mentality and I for one admire them immensely."

Apart from being absolutely delighted that one of our serving army would bother to write to a sarcastic git like me, I think that was put rather well. Many thanks.

June 5: I've realised that I have no talent at all for doing this day-to-day clap-trap so this will be the first and last one that you read.

As an overview of the week, well, I suppose that looking over it from my lofty height in the gutter we have people still asking for reasons as to how mass murder can happen in the most unexpected of places; we have today had a march in Dublin where Trade Union Leaders who surely at this time should have better things to be doing than calling for a boycott on all Israeli goods; (maybe that's the point: take the minds of the peasants off the real issues) and Fianna Fail once more showing their utter contempt not only for us but even for Cowen, their "leader" with the flaunting of their utterly ridiculous, not to mention illegal, expense accounts. Yes, I AM INDEED talking about Ivor Callely, that well known man about two towns who is as bilocatioanal as Padre Pio, that other fraud. YES! Ivor can live in two cities at the same time and is therefore entitled to €81,000 of the Irish taxpayers' money.

Of course it's true that Ivor has no mandate to be sitting (or as Ivor does, swaggering) in the Seanad or anywhere else for that matter since he was booted out of the Dail several years ago. But this is Ireland so when has nobody at all voting for you stopped crooks like this guy? Sorry, sorry, I almost forgot that Bertie Ahern was responsible for the man that nobody cared about still hanging around and claiming money that he's not entitled to.

Needless to say, Ivor, my calling you a crook is just my opinion (well, me and several other million people who are just tired of seeing you poncing around in your little runners while scarfing up as much loot as you can get and then giving two fingers to the weakling Brian Cowen) and not the opinion of this paper. More on good old Ivor next week when, surely by that time even a guy with a neck as hard Bertie Ahern's taxman will have been booted - once and for all - out, preferably from the planet, never mind politics.

By the bye, Jim Corr appeared at a rally in Dublin and proclaimed to his two adoring followers: "The world will wake up to the evil that is Israel." Nice one, Jim. Now take the little tinfoil hat off your head, stop thinking about aliens who might have been responsible for the World Trade Centre and just accept that we like your sisters better than we like you.

What else have I learned this week? Well, not much really. We're still the same corrupt little nation that we always have been; we'll seize on anything that will take the minds of the morons who prop up a bar counter while setting the world to rights away from their real problems; and I'm still in love with Jessica Lange after all these years.

If Mohammed, Jesus Christ, Buddha, Tom Cruise and Lobsang Rampa haven't struck me dead then I hope to see you all again next week.

Oh, and I'm not too crazy about Jews, David Icke, Jim Corr, Catholics, Protestants, ex- lovers (they were ALWAYS in the wrong) and mad crazed evangelists either. The same goes Feminazis, Scientologists and anyone who doesn't agree with me. Am I missing anyone? No, I think that about covers it. Oh, and I do like Beethoven, Lou Reed, the great Gore Vidal, bowling, the Coen Brothers, Debussy and any food that is bad for me.

Same bat-time!

Same bat-channel!

You can reach Charley at chasbrady7@eircom.net