The electric pylons above the rills and stinging nettles of the Dublin Hills have been alive and filled with the sound of humdingers of late, even as kettle-singing, nylon-clad housewives (and househusbands) contemplate the latest electricity bill on the windowsills of Liffeyside.
The first humdinger was, of course, the one brought sadly to mind by that blackleg, oops, redleg sculpture called Hauntings Soldier, that definite article with no definite article nor apostrophe s neither.
That was the humdinger of the bad, bad Hun torpedo in 1916 which brought a tad untimely end to the haughty, naughty yet loveable Lord ‘Crowbanger’ Kitchener. That land lubber-cum-grubby -paedo, having finally achieved his secret ambish to become a Rear Admiral, albeit due to an ambush, could but enjoy it for the briefest nonce: a fleeting chance to wave rather than point.
Thus was he (sob) left to bob, bob, bob momentarly on the surface of the choppy waters before a gobful of brine sank the blubbery, stroppy B. Ború of the Dumbass Deutschland Domestic Dispute in the dank waters of the North Sea, half of whch he involuntarily drank before his final (gulp) gulp. The single most traumatic Irish casualty of the highest scoring German D-cup final ever:
-Werder Saxe-Coburg-Gotha: 18. Hertha Hohenzollern: 14.
Kitch, the loveable old rogue of avuncular fogey, for whom the poppy will always be worn with hardly any lack of Pride, Charlie. Small surprise therefore/ kleine Ubereraschung daher that the DuB in DuBlin, a city which has seemingly suffered a permanent memory lapse about such recent trivilialties as die Bombenanschlage auf DuBlin und Monaghan, stands for : Donner und Blitzen.
Now, one is the first to declare that when it comes to most things the Hun done Good (‘Where would The Perk be without his Merc?’ is an all too familiar refrain around Warbeck Towers). By the same token (Geschchenk von Gott) he is not behind the, erm, Wall when it comes to kitsch-pointing out where the Kraut ought to have known better.
I4-18 is the most glaring example of how inept Deutschland had become at Dan Paddy Andyism. Not least when it came to matchmaking the varous disparate branches of the splay-footed, pointy-headed, flat-bottomed, wing-eared, six-fingered German nobility scattered across a Europe which then included the UK, especially the UK. (see above).
In more recent times there was the realpolitik German-American, Henry (né Heinz) K, who made his name in Cambodia where his carpet salesemanship on a grand scale went down a bomb in a land of cold, stone floors. While his winning of the Nobel Peace Prize caused smidges of dissent from the usual unreal political midgets, his most celebrated quote has, as recently as only last week, attacted a gunboat of born-again scorn.
–Power is ze ultimate aphrodisiac.
Eh?
For more dreary years than one cares to remember Germany has resolutely turned its Johann Sebastian on what is somewhat flippingly referred to as ‘Ze Lili Marlene Factor’ in the matter of choosing a Chancellor. Then, when the time eventually came for the inevitable handing over of ze baton, and a see ! change was confidentally predicted, what happens last Friday?
-Who’s Kissinger now?
Abair liomsa, a chara / You tell me, pal.
The second humdinger was the recently published Reluctant Memoir of the redoubtable artist par excellence, Robert Ballagh.
The essential difference between these two humdingers is that while the first was the baddest water colour which came to an unutterably sad ending, the second is a stylish oil painting which reached a much gladder finale. To wit:
-The History Lesson.
This painting was brushed during the era of Vivisection 31, under the glib, liberal and nibsratching auspices of the Master Debater, Congo Crisis O’Brain, who saw to it that voices not considered nice to the tiered ears of Occidental England on Liffeyside ,i.e, those of the Bogoak Monolith, were spancelled off the hill of contemporary history. Unlike:
Taigue, MBE an Dá Thaobh,
or, When will we ever Larne?
Trev Ringland cleverly clings to England
Tis his motherland, his apron string land
Yes, in the green
He used be seen
For Occidental E, was on the r/l wing land.
Hark ! What is that noise? A bark? No, but a doggy sound, a lapdoggy sound. A waggly sound of a lapdog tail tapping time. The merest mench of CCOB never fails to have this immediately benign effect on lapdogs in general and on The Linguistic Lapdog with an unquenchable Laptop in particular.
From where? The shop window of The Unionist Times on storied Tara Street. This calls for a monster hit from the Fabulous Fifties about which 3L has a blind spot so eyeless that friends and fiends alike alternate between calling him, in jest, Gaza or just plain, Spot. Le chéile, anois:
–How much is that lapdoggy in the window,
The one with the waggly tail….?
Stop it right there ! On the spot !! This lapdog is not, repeat NOT for sale.
(Damn ambiguity time again: meaning, he is NOT for sale, or that he has already been bought? Out! Out ! Damn spot!)
Fittingly, Gerry, but predictably, another devoted disciple of CCOB, a wench this time and honorary Princess of the Dark Continent, Mary ‘Coo-coo cachoo’ Robinson has donned the black cap on her legendary bare head, while bringing her gavel down (yes, her Vaklak Havel delusionary gavel), to pronounce the closure for all time of the Bogs of Occidental England. Just as the Christians Brothers were the remote cause of German U Boats, so also are the same bogs responsible for Global Warming. Fact, and wearing chequered trousers a lá Billy Bunter.
And folk still wonder what is it exactly that She of the Globe-shaped Bare Head has in for the pettiest-minded of pretty places, the Wee County: first it was (burp) Old Red Sox on bended knees in Drogheda and now it is (trouser cough) The Turf Man from Ardee. Wonder no more !
To quote Robert Ballagh:
-‘Paul Robeson’s stirring rendition of ‘Kevin Barry’ was considered too subversive to be included on the national radio station’s playlist.
I decided that it was time for another conversation, so I hatched a plot to convene a meeting with two individuals who undoubtedly would have been on a similar list in their day: Patrick Pearse and James Connolly, leaders of the 1916 Rebellion. To emphasise the clandestine nature of the hypothetical meeting, the two protagonists are portrayed at either end of a small narrow table constrained tightly by the corners of a triangular compostion.
I sit in the middle on the other side of the table, listening intently to their conversaiton. From the apex of the triangle, illuminating the claustophobic setting, hangs a single light bulb. The whole scene is rendered in a dark sepia monochrome replicating the mood of an old photograph, perhaps suggesting that a true reading of history is the only way to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past.’
It duly won the Douglas Hyde gold medal for history painting at Féile Ealaíne an Oireachtais. The Director of both the museum at St. Enda’s and also Kilmainham Gaol contacted Ballagh to propose the purchase of the painting. He pointed out that although the necessary funding was available, approval had to be obtained from the art advisory committee established by the Office of Public Works, the body responsible for both institutions.
The committee duly rejected the proposition, with one membeer vehemently snorting:
– ‘Over my dead body will that artist or that paiting be purchased’.
Later on, ‘The History Lesson’ got a similar rejection from the Hugh Lane Gallery. It might be said that HL hath no fury like the HL rejecting the HL.
Hugh Lane succumbed like Horatio Kitchener to an excess of H20 at the hands of a Hun called Hans in a UB. He was, of course, on board the Lusitania which sank in the shipping lane off the Old Head of Kinsale in early May 1915, a year exactly to the week before the Seánie Rebs were mown down and blown away in the Stone Breaker’s Yard in Kilmainham Gaol. It was Gaol of the century in d’Imperialist Scapbook.
Just as Jacob’s Biscuit factory and Boland’s Mills feature in the risible rising, so also was a confectionary factory located between the Gaol on one side and, on the other, a railway line (for the conveyance of steam engines) plus a sacred plot held in much higher esteem in these more enlightened times. The plot much more revered, Free Southern Stateside, than even Paul Revere’s Ride, Stateside: the Memorial Garden of Islandbridge which honours the Irish Dead of a Dumbass Domestic Deutschland Dispute.
The bonny Rowntree factory (for it was it !) was the dark chocolate satanic mill in question. During the Fabulous Fifties it churned out S.A.R.K.ies: Smarties, Aeros, Rolos and Kit Kats. Not to mention boxes of Quality Street. Back then, long before political dementia ate in to the Free Southern Stateen and a modicum of sanity still remained, the S.A.R.K.y remarks were directed northwards towards Islandbridge while the boxes of Quality Street led southward to Kilmainham.
Nowadays the Rolo roles are reversed, utterly. Resulting in Long John Silvermints, the cool, clean heroes of Dole Eireann, porrotting each other in doshing Dort occents. Nor has The Dublin Feedia of Fake News been refusing the stinkers which have been emanating of late from the mouths of the usual imperial lederhosen mouths, amidst lashings of self-administered back slappings:
-Just as we hov celebrated the Risible Rising with moturity and inclusivity so also have we done the same with WW1.
To this The Perkin says hear, here, thiar agus iar-Bhreatain.
In a chapter of his reluctant memoir entitled ‘Who Fears to Speak of Easter Week?’, Robert Ballagh writes:
–On a November evening in 2014 the government of the day, a coalition between the conservative Fine Gael party and the Labour Party invited the relatives of the participants in the Easter Rising and other guests to an event in the GPO, where it planned to announce its official centenary programme.
The centrepiece was a video presentation called ‘Ireland Inspires’ that airbrushed the men and women of 1916 out of history in the very location where they had made history. No images of the signatories of the Proclamation of the Irish Republic were on display. They had been replaced with images of Queen Elizabeth 11, David Cameron, the Rev. Ian Paisley, Bono, Brian O Driscoll and multi-national companies like Google and Facebook. The relatives and journalists at the event were shocked and dismayed. Public reaction was immediate and hostile and the offending video was swiftly taken offline.’
The Risible Rising.
Canadian DUPlomat K.Vickers
Into a knot twisted his knickers
Invidious Video
For eejit an’ idio
Sommeside Abbey for A-lickers.
As has been noted, the wise old heads of the Hugh Lane Gallery whose minds were more on purchases rather than kindred topics such as sales, duly rejected, with due diligence, ‘The History Lesson’. Oil-painted history has been, erm, left out to dry. A precursor, perhaps, of the subsequent sinking of History as a core subject from the Free Southern Stateen curriculum.
Located next door to the Hugh Lane Gallery, i.e., (ironically enough), on Parnell Square (actually, geometry would appear to have been simultaneously culled from na scoileanna, as said set square is actually a, erm, Parnellogram) is Coláiste Mhuire. This was Dublin’s first city centre secondary- level Gaelscoil and is (gasp) run by Na Bráithre Críostaí. It was a former Bráthair Críostaí, mar is eol, who (gulp) invented the U Boat.
Unhappily for some, history will record that this whole soggy saga re. The History Lesson had a happier outcome that the H Block of Horatio and Hugh.
On 28 February 1953 Francis Crick interrupted patrons’ lunchtime at The Eagle pub in Cambridge to announce that he and James D. Watson had ‘discovered the secret of life’. He was referring to the structure of DNA, the double helix.
In 2007 Nobel Laureate James D Watson, whom some consider, without doubt, the greatest biologist of the twentieth century, just as Charles Darwin was the greatest biologist of the 19th century, paid a visit to Dublin.
One day he happened to be passing the Adams (!) Art Auction Gallery on St. Stephen’s Green when a painting in the window caught his eye. In which the head of the artist is seen to do a double take as it swivels from Pearse to Connolly. This Gallery is situated roughly equidistant from, looking diagonally left (burp) The OPW and, looking diagonally right, (trouser cough) Hauntings Soldier, in today’s money. Through an intermediary Watson later sent a message to Robert Ballagh to discuss a painting of his and of which he was now the more than pleased owner:
-The History Lesson.
Now, who’d wouldn’t have thought that Pearse and Connolly were the double helix of Irish history? Elementary, my dear Watson.
Ba chóir go mbeadh gach balla in Éirinn faoi Bhallagh.
One of the fully intended results, oops, outcomes of Vivisection 31 (see above) and which still causes unmiked-up historians to look askance at: how by ‘happenstance’ a coterie of rotary club types and other cash-in-advance chancers were allowed to shadow dance, prance and put up a hold-me-back-let-me-at-him stance in a half empty ring. With? With a banned opponent political party, all resulting in a Nobel Prize and a sand and gravel quarry lorry-load of honorary doctorates, peace prizes, freedom of cities, that sorta thingy.
If one were looking for a sporting metaphor from that era (what else is a metaphor?) it would be a Dublin v Cork encounter in the Gaelic football league (is one still allowed to use football in the same breath ag Gaelic?) at Croke Park. The game ended in a draw so the ref indicated extra time would be played. The Cork team simultaneously took issue and the team bus from the stadium to Heuston Station / Kingsbridge (one must be inclusive) to catch the last train home to De Real Capital of Ireland, boy. Muttering dat dere had been no prior agreement to de extra time, like.
The ref muttered ‘eff youse Corkies’, went ahead and threw in the ball to the penalty kicker of the one team remaining in situ. That would be Barney Rock, dean of studies in ‘Rock Academy. Before an empty net, as per the rule, regulations agus rialacha, B.Rock (broc means badger, mar is eol, in the Leprechaun and today the once ginger-haired, erm, sett-piece kicker is as grey as the eponymous omnivore) duly tapped home the penalty.
(Pernickety point of metaphysical (gasp) GAH procedure: what would the result of the above have been if B.Rock had tapped the ball wide? Uncle Thomists incline one way, Nephew Thomists the other).
For the duration of Vivisection 31 (designed to do down Urban Gorillas such as A.P.E. / Arm Phoblacht Éireann) the SDLP (for it is it ! Shadow Dance Labour Party) kept tapping penalty goals after penalty goals into an empty net to orgasmic roars from the adoring Dublin Feedia of Fake News: brillo! bravo ! gravy train-o !And, of course, awe-some ! and then some.
Sadly, the SDLP (for it is still it!), having had its fiche bliain ag snas dross / twenty years of self-hypnotized trance till their swelled heads had, infamously, reached Malin-sized proportions, is now languishing, sadly, as a clutch of Butch Cassidys under the breastfeedership of the Sundance Kid, a West Brit who (burp) would eternally look east to take his seat at (trouser cough) Westminster :
-Slough of Despond Labour Party.
Enter then, stage left, the eternally outraged Councillor Mannix Flynn, Earl of Querulousness, World-acclaimed expert on the, erm, healing powers of gorgeous Georgian architecture. Always in like, well, a shot, when his media profile has seemed to him or even deemed by him to have been slipping below average on the Blow Jones Index. And he to be calling on the blower to RTE Radio or some such equiv for spivs, for Hume Street, Dublin 2 to be renamed as, well, fan leis :
-John Hume street.
But, what can that sound be/ Cé hí sin amuigh a bhfuil faobhar ar a guth? Ah, the faobhar sex.
-Hold on a mo, Mister Man !.
Shriek these narky Shrek-like harpies known as the addled Caddenistas, bedecked in foam-flecked mouths. This snotty blisterhood of McHenpartyism whose humour, both at the best and at the worst of times, tends towards the potty (not least in the Dáil Chamber), is vehemently opposing MF’s campaign for a John in Hume Street. On the fact-checked basis that Ireland’s very own Joan of Ark (genuflect) Nurse Mamie Cadden, Grand Dame of Gin Villa, once held court at Number 17, till the crows went home.
The Mannix Annexe
His voice like a pneumatic drill
V. Shrillies clad in cavalry twill
‘Number 7 -teen
Abortion Queen !
No John without a sitdown Jill !’
Having, erm, Lim-bered up, perhaps the time is ripe now to go out on not one, but two, erm, Lims.
Tóibín, nó gan Tóibín?
Fágadh Toibín TD ar bhonn pro-tem
Níos lú deis’nois éirí le Creme de M
Ní raibh paidir
Riamh ag Peadar
Sa Pháirtí Nua díomua seo: Sinn Fem.
On the Other Hand
The Knee-jerk missies do The Perk
Diss as one male, chauvinistic berk
Ballon d’Or
Pussies galore
Whisp: may we have the next twerk?
.
TUILLEADH LE TEACHT: TO BE CONTINUED
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