SOME PEOPLE DESPERATELY IN NEED OF A HOBBY by Harry McAvinchey

Has the world rocked on its axis ?

Have people gone mad, entirely? Jimmy Osmond has been tested for alcohol, randomly on a road side in Wales.Don’t they know who “The Long -Haired Lover from Liverpool” is? Probably not .He was a wee saccharin sprog when he had his Big Hit Record back in the day. He should have said “Don’t you guys know who I am ?” before he allowed them to waste precious police resources. Everyone knows , that as a good, clean-living Mormon  Pantomimer, he would never allow the alcoholic Devil’s Buttermilk past those sacred lips.As far as I know tea and coffee are also verboten , so my daily intake of Punjana tea has condemned my bodily temple to outright damnation long, long  ago. It’s a strange world out there.Needless to say Jimmy walked away, a free man.

in another news-piece, Bernadette Smyth of Precious Life , the lady who always appears to be sucking a bitter lemon, while stifling a  smug delight in the attention of the media is unusually quiet.Someone has just advised her to keep quiet and look mysterious. This unusual stance  gives her the appearance of a well-coiffed , just- smacked bum; she has fallen foul of the law by harassing the PUP’s ‘s Dawn Purvis  outside her place of work at the Mary Stopes  sexual health clinic.She didn’t look too repentant on television and truth be told , she probably isn’t. I think the appropriate response should have been…. “You ain’t seen publicity like it yet darlin'”….in a broad Ballymoor Grousebeater’s accent….

Then again,there are plenty of people out there who think it is  a good idea sticking their noses into other people’s business.The Keyhole Kate Syndrome,I’d call it,  I suppose.Keyhole Kate , for those lacking in the knowledge of the  arcane world of the comics medium, was a girl with a pointy nose who was just a tad nosey and constantly exercised her curiosity on any keyhole. The introduction of the slimline Yale keyhole put an end to her career.

Norneverland always had a particularly  rude and virulent streak of that kind of thing .There’s always some poor “crature”  on the street, wailing that the “End is Nigh” {Isn’t it always?} and shoving some fevered tract into your pocket, letting you know that you are doomed .  Remember “Save Ulster From Sodomy”, anyone?  You’d think it was a disease that anyone could catch while sharing a taxi. There they were ..out on the streets with their placards. You can imagine the conversation before they’d go out on a protest.”We’ve got to catch this sodomy before it catches us!!..Let’s get out and protest about it !!!”…”Hey , you buy the loudhailer and i’ll get the placards printed!”…”let’s do it!….Nooowww!”

Mad or what?

Norneverland is full of that kind of stuff.Remember the “Let’s Ban that play we haven’t Seen” by the Little Shakespeare Company. We don’t want to see it .Let’s not let everyone else see it either!!! That was  a pretty recent one, so the crazies are still out there, huddling in darkened rooms.You’d wonder that they wouldn’t take up a hobby like macrame  or knitting and leave the rest of us alone, wouldn’t you? Quite a few of them gravitate to politics,of course,  which is why we have ended up in the mess we now swim in.

Meanwhile , Stephen Fry , that  personification of the ultimate gay  British Englishman ,whom all good Britishers have aspirations to emulate… has fallen foul of the DUP for his opposition to their  “Equality Lite ” proposals. He  has declared …”To be ‘slammed’ by the bigots of the DUP is to be bathed in light and kissed by angels. I am content.” Well , if this most eloquent and thoughtful  of  Englishmen is happy, maybe he has a point.

A hobby might have saved  some people and the rest of us all… a lot of grief.