Separated at birth…
(Here’s Harry’s written bit, unfortunately overlooked first time. Enjoy…)
Ha ha …Now admit it …. You thought that Jeffrey Donaldson the Norneverland Democratic Unionist politician and Daniel O’ Donnell the popular Country and Western crooner , had both been built in the same clone factory that time had long-since forgotten …didn’t you ? They shared the same face .The haircut was surely a giveaway. That syrup-of – figs sitting atop the wee round head …”Just like a mattress ..balances on a bottle of wine”, as Bob sang in “Leopardskin Pill Box Hat”. It was obvious that they were actually one and the same person. You thought that nobody could be as mordant as to pull off a ruse like that right in front of the public , in the glare of media scrutiny..
Maybe you just accepted, without even questioning it, that Wee Jeffrey and Daniel were actually one and the same person , like Superman and Clark Kent or Peter Parker and Spider-man. Y’know, Daniel dabbling a bit in some very right of right -wing conservative politics and ….. or Jeffrey appearing at a theatre near you singing some hokey old bit of sentimental country and western asinine tat about “Me Muther” or whatever….something to get the old dears crying into their hankies or wanting to squeeze him hard to their collective bosoms and mother the very life out of him.
You might have thought in a spare moment that these two, or possibly this one singular creature, had been created in a dimension that had missed entirely every social and musical change and nuance worth a damn ,in this past fifty or sixty years.You might have wondered had they heard about the Beatles, Bob Dylan Nelson Mandela, Duke Ellington ,first man on the moon, the invention of sex…well maybe not that last one …but you know what I mean .You never got Jeffrey/Daniel shaving their head , growing their hair , sporting a beard or going a bit wild in any sense of the word.Straight ahead …no corners nor imagination .Sheltered lives you might say….You imagined him/them ironing a severe crease into their blue jeans { Never trust a man who irons his jeans…}… and carefully spraying their lustrous hairy barnet with hairspray so that every little errant follicle sat neatly in its allocated place ….a bit like a tonsorial death-mask , devoid of character or any kind of wild joie de vivre.
I was drawn to study this mystery and discovered that Daniel and Jeffrey actually “officially” share a birthday in the month of December.It was almost too good to be true, I thought, initially ;the month was right but actually several days separated the glorious event in the “official ” record . It appeared too that Daniel entered this mortal coil a full year earlier than did Jeffrey . Daniel was born in December 1961 and Jeffrey in December 1962…. Close enough though…Still ,maybe this alter-ego business happened at a very early age, just like Superman. The similarities were extraordinary.The theory came to a sad end this week though .This dual- life theory , the Duality could never stand up in the face of a statement uttered from one of the pair .
There’s a referendum this week on whether or not same -sex marriage should be made legal in Ireland .In light of this debate that has energised everyone south of the Norneverland border , one of the aforementioned duo of similar looking and sounding clones has come firmly down on the “Yes” side and energetically nailed his colours to the masthead. The theory is shattered entirely .
Which of the two do think uttered that immortal statement?
This Facelook thingy could be catching,, Harry, a chara..
Check out Sir Ronnie Flanagan and Colm Toibin, sir.
Both also separated at birth.
Not unlike, come to think of it: Norneverland and the Free Southern Stateen.
Beir bua !
Nice post but was hoping to hear you singing a ballad!!
I have noticed the similarity between Ronnie Flanagan and Colm Toibin, Mighty Perk…but these observations don’t always assemble themselves into a story . Jeffrey and Daniel could well go into the next screenplay development phase and indeed , ben ,could even turn into a ballad to sing down through the ages by stout men raising tankards of ale . I’ll throw that one out to the audience to maybe cobble together the necessary verses.