THE   GRAVEYARD SHIFT by Perkin Warbeck

The Newt is the graveyard shift who continues to dig.

What with his Southern Yune colleagues on The Unionist Times from Hugh ‘Boo Hoo’ Linehan and the gloomy, doom-laden  Editor (whoever he or she might be this week – call him or her, Mistress/ Master Revolving-D’or for the nonce) forecasting the near-imminent demise of West Britannia’s second oldest Ragamuffin Basher, The Newt keeps on whistling a merry tune, name of:

-The Craicodile is Ninety in The Unionist Times.

And not just past the cemetery where the soon to be the late TUT is due to be interned, oops, interred but indeed inside the exact same cem.

This Thursday in TUT the Ubermensch with the Undergrad glad eye was ponitificating about something he knows sour Fanny Adams about – the Leprechaun. But then, this is a trivial consideration for one used to looking down from the Withering Heights of Portydown upon the Bog-oak Monolith who dwell below the Black Sow’s Dyke.

Under the triumphalist bumpf-heading of:

-SINN FÉIN HAS NEVER WANTED an IRISH LANGUAGE ACT !

The Newt, true to form, proceeded to ignore Arl’s less than Fáilte Uí Cheallaigh (which she had previously hinted at prior to her post-Eurolottery Win) and accompanying snarl at the (gulp) ‘cultural supermacists of Sinn Fein’. As Uachtarán Provisional Sin É í féin might have eloquently put it:

-Is fearr Béarla briste (na Síreanna) ná Gaeilge chliste / Broken English of the Shires trumps the pithy patois of Pat.

The Newt went on to namecheck St. Andrews a couple of times. Indeed he lost his ball(s) a few times in the rough of the agreeable Old Course, primarily at Holes 2 and 16, known as (gulp) The Dyke and The Corner of the Dyke, respectively. The knotty rough around these two holes is particularly convoluted in a manner reminiscent of the Ablative Absoulte in Ulster Scots, oddly enough. Even the briefest of fly overs in a borrowed aircraft, whether it be a RAF Taxi (if not in use to ferry the Gaffer home to her gaff) or even a fog-bound Air Corps helicopter itself, would confirm this grim, gramatical point.

In The Royal and Ancienct game of Golf, being nawt if not a game of etiquette, one tends to avert one’s eyes when one’s playing partner lands in the rough. So, at this stage his loyal though (gulp) dwindling readership among the adoring gallery of Southern Yunes will have averted their gaze even as the hack continued to hack and hack and hack his way out of the Scotch scutch grass as they discreetly proceeded to the defining feature of St. Andrews.

-The Swilcan Bridge.

This ancient 700 year old brig was constructed for the herding of sheep and hairy-faced cattle so the Southern Yunes were naturally drawn to such a, erm, stone link on the grass links. There to chant a mantra whch their Plus-Fore hero was overheard to will with increased shrillness even as the hack hacked and hack-attacked his dimpled Dunlop Number 6 still caught in the knotty Scotch scutch grass:

-Gaeilgeoirí Awkward Squad !

Phew, a new term of linguistic endearment has been born under the chloroform of soft-core racism, due to the Newt:  G.A.S. is poised to replace the hackneyed C-section: Compulsion.

-Gaeilgeorí Awkward Squad ! Gaeilgeoirí Awkward Squad ! Gaeilgeoiri Awkward Squad !

-Re-spect.

The Newt was echoing here what his colleague on TUT’s broadcasting wing, Audrey Carville of RTE had to say the day before on Yawning Ireland. When this prissy missy from the carved-out-of-Ulster county of Monaghan primly put it to Conor Murphy, MEP in respect of the disrespectful (gasp) Bilingual Road Signs:

-Conor. Murphy. Can. You. Not. See. How. Threathened. The. Unionists. Must. Feel ?

This stacatto delivery might sound ratty-tat-tat on paper but in truth when delivered by the prim and prissy Missy Audrey the words caress the listerner’s ears softly as if they are shod in Primsolls. Small surprise her line of interrogation, oops, questioning when a Shinner bod happends to be in her cross hairs is affectionately known to her Farney-sized fan base in the ONLY English-speaking stateen still in the EU, as:

-The Primsoll Line.

Ar ndóigh, Missy Audrey was taking her cue in turn from Uachtarán Provisional Sin É:

–Is fearr Béarla briste (na Síreanna) ná Gaeilge chliste / Broken English of the Shires trumps the pithy patois of Pat.

Threathening Bilingual Road Signs.

Eh?

Fág an bealach ! Géill slí ! The Para-Road Signs are Coming Atcha ! The Marching Season of the Apprencitce Bilingual Fife and Drum Road Signs is about to commence !

Stad : Stop

Géill Slí : Yield

Aire! : Caution!

Go Mall : Go Slow (sorry apprentice girls…not “go to the mall”!)

Tiomáin Go Cúramach: Drive Carefully

Bóthar Cúng : Narrow Road

Rampa Romhat : Ramp Ahead

Trasrian Coisithe: Pedestrian Crossing

Bealach Timpill : Detour

Baol Tuilte: Road Subject to Flooding (this is Ireland, after all!)

Bóthar Faoi Uisce: Road Flooded (see what I mean?)

Bóthar Dúnta : Road Closed

Carrchlós : Car Park/Parking Lot

Cosc ar Pháirceáil : No Parking

The Newt, ar ndóigh, replaced The McCannabis Man as The Man who is Thursday in The Unionist Times.. The latter’s valedictory three-hanky column would have looked East and centred on his (gasp) worship of The Salamander Man whom he characterized as (gulp) The Epitome of Decency. That would be the cold, remote Ten Million Squids a Year Man called Arsene Wenger (for it is also he!).

One mentions the last point as a newt is a member of the family Salamandridae, which, allied to the fact that the sole qualification for inheriting the role of The Man who is Thursday is an elevated ability to kick the Shinners in the Shin, angrily. Hence, the changing of the guard being characterised thus:

-Continuity IRATE.

The Newt, being a divil entirely for links, continued on this theme by linking G.K. Chesteron (who penned The Man who Was Thursday) with the Ecclesiastical Egg-head, Jonathan Swift.

-There is something of Swift’s Big-Enders and Little-Enders about such a semantic dispute, which has now thrown devolution and talks on restoring it into limbo.

The Craic continues to be ninety in The Unionist Times with the hard-boiled Newt in truly cracking form, with Southern Yune- spoon in one hand and the Egg-chasing cup in the other.

Watch the Newt hit a beaut when he deftly linked golf with the Gulf. Thisaway, folks:

Compared to the other Gulf States who are oil rich (or were, in anyways) Quatar is a quare place. For Quatar’s moola is not derived from ola but rather from (gulp) GAS.

Now, the GAS-rich Quatar has already nailed down (and not just in the, erm, tentativ e sense of that term) the Soccer, oops, Football World Cup, 2022.

Signs are that by his playing of the Éire Quatar (daily, in front of the Mirror: could he be mentally preparing himself for the switch?) and his discovery of G.A.S. the Newt has ensured that the, erm, Egg-chasing World Cup 2023 will, erm, End Up both littly and bigly, in a legless Ulster and its southern colony, the only English-speaking country in the EU.

Re-spect.

But, how long can TUT, the Grand Old Duke of Yorrick, keep on marching up to the top of Caraountoole, aka Boot Hill?

Once more, alas, hard-hearted Hibernia has hurt An Pearcán into poetasting; Luimneach , led thoil.

MUCHAS BUÍ-OCHAS

‘Sé An Newt an fliút is déanaí darb ainm dó

Déardaoin: ach cá fad eile a bhéas TUT beo?

D’aimsigh sé G.A.S.

Againn bíodh meas

Ní bheidh a leithéd de Newt arís ann go deo.