Hugh Linehan’s recent writhing on the wall of woe in the Saturday edish of The Unionist Times is, as harbingers go, a dead ringer for the little big debt knell for TUT of Tittle Tattle fame. So morose, indeed, was Hugh   he felt compelled to overdose in the holding out of the gloomy flat hat of supplication under the nose of Government.

-Spare a few coppers, Guv?

But it is not till one reads the Editorial, that daily paen to the Panjamdrum of Pomposity, that the reader’s eyes are surprised to find even more room for, erm, rheum.

-It’s time for the two big parties in Northern Ireland to show they are serious about politics by striking a deal that will enable the power-sharing institutions to be restored. Failure to do so will be a sad reflection on the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and Sinn Féin and will call into question their capacity to serve their communities in any meaningful way.

(So far so even handed, Stephanie).

-It would be truly ironic if the DUP, having so skilfully negotiated a £1 billion package for their support for Theresa May’s Conservative government, were to hand over the distribution of the largesse to ministers based in London.

(Skilfully ? SKILFULLY? As in, say, the passerby on the bridge skilfully shagged in a life belt to the drowning woman. SKILFULLY, like? Head Editorial beginning to nod, perhaps, in the direction of their fellow Yunes in the DUP?)

-What divides the two parties appears more symbolic than real. Sinn Féin is insisting on a free-standing Irish Language Act while the DUP wants to tag on other elements, including the status of Ulster Scots.

(So, the Leprechaun is a free-standing load of old symbolics. Soon to be Dead-Head Editorial actually nodding in the direction of the DUP?)

-The approach of the two parties to this issue is clearly about more than language. It is about each side trying to put one over on the other.

(Ah, equilibrium-de-dum at last, of sorts. A plague, if not a plaque, on Both your Houses, then, but mainly on the rickety Tigh tagged Taigue).

But it is in the heaven-sent dispatches of the riotously comical Rel Cor of TUT where the true thigh-slappery is to be mapped:

Patsy McGarrry (for it is he!) recently reported:

 -Protestants and Catholics sharing church in Co Monaghan !!!

St Mary’s in Castleblayney moving in with St Maeldoid’s from today.

The gesture by St Maeldoid’s select vestry and its rector, the Rev Neal Phair, was approved by the Church of Ireland Bishop of Clogher, John McDowell, and accepted by St Mary’s, its priest Fr Pat McHugh and his parishioners.

“I am absolutely delighted that we can be of assistance to our brothers and sisters in Christ at St Mary’s,” Mr Phair said. “We celebrate the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity together, and it is wonderful that we can further the unity we share by worshipping under the same roof for the coming year.”

Patsy McGarry, a self-confessed lapsed Catholic who collapsed into the welcoming arms of the, erm, Unitarian Chuch of which his (gulp) predecessor as Rel Cor of TUT,  Andy Pollack is a pillar with a salty turn of political phrase , is perhaps the most serenely qualified Rel Cor on the religiously-divided island of West Britannia. Being in the unique posish of being able to meet himself – theologically speaking – on the liturgical way back, going forward.

The delightfully wolfish tone of his report showed he was quite beside himself with well-nigh beatific joy:

-Hi, Patsy, this is McGarry.

-Thought I recognised him: how’s it cutting, McGarry ?

Where to next for the follow-up gesture of reconciliation, the better to knock the wrecking bawlers on the head?

Say Monaghan, and one thinks – for whatever reason – of Dublin. The city where there is a chance for the Established Church, oops, the Church of the Establishment to, erm, redouble its efforts at the disarmingly publicised alms-giving, thereby ‘putting one over on the other side’. (See Editorial above).

Here be a hint: ‘what divides the two parties appears more symbolic than,erm, real estate’. (Again, see Editorial above)

Already the loyal corgies on the streets of Liffeyside are barking that it’s a toss up between those two cheek-by-cowl monuments to religious (as distinct from political) redundancy, St. Patricks and Christchurch Cathedrals, as to which of them will win the toss. Or, indeed, lose it, depending on one’s proclivities to the Grand (if long, long overdue) Gesture of Reconciliation.

But, where TUT truly has the market in TUTiness cornered (but for how long, Lord?) is emphaised in their current marketing slogan, which is last-ditch in tenor, to the point of last-ditchiness:

-Facts have no Agenda (quota) !

Inevitably, it is the Galiphate and the Galiban of TUT in Tara House which continue to make the running in both their stillettos and flatties, the latter footwear being favourted when they are flat out in pursuit of copy.

It will be recalled from Part the One of this profound and profoundly pessimistic essay of The Perkin  that the First Commandment of the Una Mulally Cat-echism is:

-Thou, manperson, shalt not throw bouquets.

This dicktat, oops, dictat would appear to have been followed obediently when the Washington Correspondent for TUT was interviewed on the Broadcasting Wing of TUT, RTE and quizzed about her opin on The Donald.

Suzanne Lynch (for it is she!) opined:

-I have a very strong opinion about him.

(Run it past us,Suz, run it past us).

-He has this ….Phys-i-c-al-it-y about him. An A-ggress-ion.

Hmmmm.

No bouquets being thrown there. Nor were there any bouquets thrun neither over on Newstalk fm aka the Broadcasting Wing of the (sic) Irish Independent (The Perkin’s inner tight rope walker is a stickler for balance) where  Dame Edwina Currie aka La Hottie, gave her measured opinion of the Labour Leader:

-Jeremy Corbyn is not exactly God’s gift to women.

(In contrast to whom, EC ? L’Eminence Grise, peut etre?)

Hmmmm

This is not so much Populism, perhaps, as, erm, Momulism, mother of all the Miss Andries.

There is a new phenom among the Drug Cartels of Mexico: called ‘Las Flacas’, meaning ‘The Skinny Girls’ who have been recruited by Los Barones de la Droga who have come to recognise that the female is indeed, the deadlier of the species. The better, therefore, for the elimination of Los Rivales.

These muchachas who are as lethal as they are lovely; being as effective with the old AK 47 (debajo de la cama/ under the bed) as they are with the even older OK 69.

El Donaldo would prefer, one surmises, to take his chances with Las Flacas south of the border than with Las Hackettes of the Galiphate and the Galiban in The Unionist Times south of the Black Sow’s Dyke..

The flush down the super toilet bowl of The Donald was clickly followed on high heels by the gush of the hacetereatte of TUT. When Justin the Combustible from north of the border came-a-calling on Leo the Neo-PM.

The host was thoughtfully wearing his loudest, cleanest shock socks, i.e,. his Make Believe, oops, Maple Leaf socks with their Mountie motif: ‘We always get our Man!’

This is how TUT’s Mimsy, that Lord of the Language (German Queen’s) reported:

 ‘Insanely handsome’

-But back to the swoonsome Biebeau, who had quite the following among the females in the crowd at Farmleigh.

“He’s insanely handsome!” was one reporter’s take-away line from the brief tête-à-tête between the two men when they posed for photographs before their meeting. Fanboy presented Biebeau with a book of poems by WB Yeats, then he tried to give him a new pair of socks.

An aide rushed over. “Eh, no, no, Taoiseach. They’re for later.”

(Thus, was the Same-Socks Marriage made in Hackette Heaven postponed, for the nonce, boy).

Beaucoup de bouquets !

Curiously (1), it was the watch dog of the people which did not bark in the Organ of Record aka TUT, which arched eyebrows among the ranks of the cnawdawnies (who are, alas, always with us). And amongst whom, happily, The Perkin is not to be numbered.

The narky watch dog did not bark when Justin the Combustible had only just to one bright island flown when he was Céad Mile Fáilted at Dublin Airport by his Ambassador in Ireland. And with a bear hug which would have been the envy of the Grizzies who make their natural habitats deep in Canadian woods, my boys.

Now it will be forgotten that as recently as May 26, 2016 the same Canadian Ambassador took the law into his own large bear-sized hands when he rugby-tackled a peaceful Irish protestor to the turf at a (gasp) commemoration of the risible Easter Uprising in (gulp) Grangegorman. A colour party of, erm, the Empah Army were in respectful attendance.

Diplomats are, by definition, distiguished, upright to the point of being uptight people sent abroad to lie for their country. Alas, Kevin Vickers (for it was he !), seems to have cofused ‘lie’ with ‘lay into’.

Curiously (2) the T-word did not occur to the hackettes of TUT, neither then nor now.

That would be T for Thug which is the Raj take on the (gasp) Hindi word Thag.

-Ooh, ah, up the Raj !

Curiously (3) among the gifts bestowed by Leo the Neo-PM upon Justin the Angel Dustman was a, erm, Thag-rugby gansey in the shoulder to shoulder green of Eireland.

You want …. Phys-i-c-all-it-y ?. You want……..An A-gg-ress-ion?

(Singing: We’ll roast old Ireland ! Dear old Ireland ! Ireland gals, hurrah !).

 Curiously (4), during the dress conference at Farmleigh House none of the impressed West B. Galipate or Galiban of TUT thought to toss a question at the Bromantic pair of Prim Mins on the topic of one, Kevin Vickers. Nothing, then, to get one’s rhyming K’s in a twist about. Nothing in the tackle to raise the   hackles of the TUT hackettes..

Could that have had something to do with the gender of the downed Irish protester, as the cnawdawnies (who are always with us, alas) are claiming. Perish the very T-word!

Beaucoup de bouquets !

To exit where one entered: the conundrum centred on TUT’s mysterious decision to move lock, frock and b. from their home of yore for years and yonks on D’Olier (than Thou) Street to plonk theyselves in Tara House, contagious to the railway station of that name.

The clue lies in Hugh Linehan’s prognostication of gloom. What Hugh (Hugh who? Hugh Linehan) implied, but did not state explicitly, was the historical fact that in 1873 Lady Arnott bought the Organ of Record and moved its premises to Westmorebritland Street before moving it around the corner to D’Olier (than Thou) Street.

The stark rhetorical question Hugh’s inner news houund did not explicitly bark but subtly implied was:

-Are the Arnotts about to become the Are Nots ?

Just as Oscar Wilde was borned opposite the railway station of Westland Row tis written in the Typhoo tea-leaves that TUT will leave this world opposite the next railway station north, to wit, Tara Street Station.

Singing this dirge with a smile on one’s dial, Wilde-wise:

Yesterday I heard a lover sigh

“Goodbye, oh me, oh my”

Seven times she got aboard her train
And seven times she hurried back
To kiss her love again, and tell him

TUT, TUT , TUTsie, good bye
TUT , TUT , TUTsie, don’t cry
The choo-choo train that takes you
Away from me and other Southern Yunes

No words can tell how sad it makes me
Kiss me, TUTsie, and then
Do it over again
Watch for the mail, I’ll never fail
If you don’t get a letter then you’ll know I’m in jail
TUT, TUT , TUTsie, don’t cry
TUT, TUT, TUTsie, good bye!

The ‘she’ here is, of course, the Readership which has left on the midnight train, heading north as befits a, erm, gravy train. Readership, like other ships, is female.

This song could well be reprised by, erm, Eddi ‘Editorial’ Reader.

An uplifting dirge to help us Southern Yunes through the dark era which Samuel beckons: the post TUT era. To help us, erm, newspaper over the cracks in our hearts for the newspaper which in almost 200 years of existence succeeded in contributing one solitary word to the German Queen’s English, but what a word. The C-word:

-C for Craic.

Will he no come back again? The Fairground Attraction known as TUT.

Eddi ‘Editorial’ Reader’s B-side can be:

– Find my love, actually.