Well if it looks like it might work with the people, why not use it with the politicians. (If, of course, you regard members of the Seanad as politicians and not undemocratic nominations by privileged groups in southern society). Apparently some Senators – and get this – who were nominated by the Taoiseach are now thinking of voting down the Water Charges bill. (Yes, indeed, Virginia – they €42,000 a year.) No less a man than heir-apparent Leo Varadkar has warned them that if they do vote the Bill down, the original legislation, where people were to be charged over €500 a year will swing into place. In other words, vote the Water Services Bill 2014 down (don’t you just love that “Services” bit?) and you’ll end up having everyone pay about three times as much.
Clever, eh? Or maybe too clever. If I was a campaigner against the Water Suckitup Bill 2014 I’d be rubbing my hands in delight at Leo’s words. Because if they do pass a bill that charges people €500+ for their water, having dangled something nearer €100 a year, the water protest will receive an injection of energy that will make the Gerry-arrest bounce look like a mild hiccup. If I were Leo and Enda, I’d start pulling heavy furniture behind the doors of Leinster House now. Leave it to Thursday or Friday when the Seanad votes and it could be too late.
Scripted Spontaneity and the People are paying.
Given that we are in the midst of the festive season, it seems fair that we give elected representatives a break from austerity management. They too have gifts to purchase.
How does one decide?
Cinderella Slippers with 565 diamonds for partner. Euro 1.6million
A bottle of Les Royales Pefume for partner. Euro 3,777
A Jack Row Pen for the son. Euro 35,132
A Jurassic Tourbillon Watch for the daughter. Euro 295,000
A Diamond Encrusted IPhone for 2nd daughter. Euro 12.55 million
A Leica 60 Camera for 2nd son. Euro 15,000
A Row Alligator Backpack for the au pair. Euro 31,430
A Box of Gurkha Cigars for the chauffeur. Euro 20,000
Who needs Tax Credits?
For the second time this week, Esteemed Blogmeister, one has mistakenly identified the person in the photograph.
This time, instead of the lovely Leo Varadkar it was none other than Tommy Cooper – just like that !
Mind you, Tommy C, minus the fez. In mitigation, though, as Vardakar is a sort of fez-wearing patronym, perhaps there is some excuse for Perkie, though some might point to the superfluity of the fizzy stuff he has been imbibing at Warbeck Towers this blessed Festive season. Not to mention the black stuff that comes in that epitome of the cooper’s art: the barrel.
The season that is jolly does tend betimes to make one see ivy when in fact it is holly.
We in the Free Southern Stateen are divils entirely for the strange sounding names which bring the look faraway to places, like our eyes. Our easily impressed eyes. Our too easily impressed ears. (As we Warbecks know all too well, and not necessarily to our disadvantage neither. Say no more).
Think Banotti, for example. As in Mary Banotti. Bit more of an ear-catcher than, say, Mary O’Mahoney, whatti? Banotti too looks rather better in trainers than O’Mahoney, which tends more to the flat-soled sensible end of footwear. Especially, peace-trainers.
Btw, Mary B, nee, O’M, is a grand-niece of the pacifiist Michael ‘Mick’ Collins. She told us so herself, oh, at least tre milioni cinquecentomilia times. Indeed, if Mary B. were to have gotten a glass of Chianti every time she mentioned the name of St. Michaelangelo, patron saint of the pacific Fine Gael, she’d be well on her way by now to being historically associated for all time with the squat bottle encased in a straw basket. (Don’t ask about this flask).
But, seeing as you do ask, in Tuscany this straw basket is known as a ‘fiasco’. It figures.
Think Creighton, for example. As in Lucinda Creighton. Bit more of an ear-catcher than, say, Kate Muldoon, eh?. In the dear dead days still not quite beyond recall there was a sweet singer from Foyleside called Michael O’Duffy. Those were the priggish days when a dude had to be actually able to sing before he could even blink about making it as a singer. Imagine !
These days it’s enough if you can produce your maternal granny’s sewing machine. Even a photo will do.
The honey-tonsilled tenor used to sing a song thus:
‘I love to ramble down the old boreen
When the hawthorn blossoms are in bloom
And to sit on the sate by the old mossy gate
A whispering to Kate Muldoon’.
Mossy gates are out; bossy boots are in. Kate Muldoon, your time is up: come in Lucinda which has in the past and will in the future, rhyme again with Inda.
Think Zappone, for example. As in Senator Katherine Zappone. No, better not. Moving swiftly on.
Think De Rossa, for example. Now here, hear ye, hear ye, we’re really entering in the domain, if not the very demesne itself, of strange-sounding names. Not least when welded together (note the avoidance there of the too obvious variant of the ‘to stick’ verb) with the ultimate faraway placename, Proinsias.
How they tittered, how they chaffed, the panic-attack hacks did, when Prawnface came out one drizzly day and in that disarmingly bare-faced way of his, admitted that the only reason he, erm, stuck (unavoidable, E.B.) to the leprechaun versh of his surname, sir, in preference to the civilised versh, Ross (think Free Willie) was on account of …..Certain Findings.
Certain Findings, cf., those which showed the higher up the foodchain of the ballot paper the candidate’s name is, the better the chance. D coming as it (still) does before R. Imagine!
Unless, of course, your surname is sufficiently EXOTIC to overcome even the initial V. So very bewitching indeed is the Varadkar name to Free Southern Stateen ears that he is already being wildly touted as the (gulp) future Prime Minister: the Indian medicine man who will sort out the Cowboy culture of the Irish body politic.
There was a certain inevitability about young Leo’s joining the Blue Shirts, having being educated in the rather runny of the mill academy with the funny name (gulp) King’s Hospital School on Liffeyside. It is also known as The Blue Coat School and is open to all comers, provided one does not pronounce the H-word as – gasp! – Hostipal.
To conclude where one commenced, by a commodious vicus of recirculation, with Tommy Cooper. Everybody’s favourite Uncle Tommy was seemingly not quite as avuncular as one might suppose, not quite what it said on the t for tin. A bit of a meanie by all accounts, not too much given to sharing the tin, as it were.
An urban legend, in all probability not entirely apocryphal perhaps, has Tommy C. pressing his tip into the top pocket of the taxi driver – just like that ! – and saying:
-Have a drink on me, mate.
The tip being, ca va sans dire, a tea bag.
Nice Leo Varadkar, T.D., has been a congenial passenger up to this and has been given an easy ride so far, by a FSS media mucho impressed by his modulated tones, those words, immaculately dressed in Burberry.
But, and there’s always a but, which bridges the gap between one’s credulity and one’s scepticism (a daarling phrase, Joxer) just as Butt Bridge spans the two banks of Liffeyside, are we on the v for verge of seeing the first ever…..Teabag Taoiseach?
Best, perhaps, let those born under the sign of Leo decide. And who can pronounce ‘hospital’ proper.
Isn’t power a wonderful thing? It can change what seemed to be a normal, reasonable politician (as much as a politician can be) into the great dictator.
But then maybe its not so much the power as the pressure. Because he realises the non-passing of the ‘current’ water bill will result in the implosion of the FG-Lab coalition.
This measure is such an obvious blackmail attempt that, presuming he is speaking for the party, they should be turfed out on their backsides immediately.
And the irony is that the opposition (Sinn Fein and the independents), I don’t consider Fianna Fail as such, need do nothing to prosper and gain electoral ground.
Just sit back, using a long-handled poker to stir the flames now and again, and watch the bunch of muppets (with apologies to ordinary decent muppets) make themselves unacceptable and unelectable.
Interesting times ahead!
It is very rare for the Senate to vote down a piece of legislation passed by the Dail. It’ll be very interesting to see if they do.