Two-faced, bare-faced cheek

By the boiling blood of the Fomorians, what the hell is this kamikaze government of ours going to do next? Introduce a tax on sex?

Just this morning I tuned into the airwaves. It’s a magic talent I have, as a Tuatha De Danann god, whereby I don’t actually need a radio. Bet you’re all jealous, eh? But anyhow, to the point.

The radio newsreader said that anyone who had received a bonus payment, or some sort of front-loaded payment of their salary BEFORE the emergency budget would have the new tax levies BACKDATED to January. So if you received extra payments for anything in the past three and a half months, you’re going to be nobbled by the government, even though you might have paid it under the previous tax regime.

And just to ensure that the government is being fair about all this (not), there’s a large group of TDs who are going to KEEP their €6,400 worth of annual bonus pay. What happened to “sharing the pain”, eh?

The Irish Independent reports today on its front page lead story that, and I quote, “Mr Lenihan’s controversial measures to curb politicians’ pay are far from clear-cut.”

Indeedy folks, listen to this. Hearken to this sodden piece of murky financial craftsmanship. “The Department of Finance confirmed that the scrapping of long-service increments would only apply to those who would be entitled to the payment in the future, and the bonus would not be taken off those already receiving it. At the moment, 66 TDs are getting a payment of €6,391 a year for 10 years’ service and six TDs are receiving €3,198 for seven years on duty.”

It’s the dirtiest of slimey slimeball trickery-snickery tactics I’ve seen in a long time. And, having been around for the last 4,000 years, I’ve seen a lot of shenanigans. Including that time when Aonghus tricked the Dagda out of Newgrange because he insisted it needed an Environmental Impact Statement prior to planning permission for a giant ring of stones around it.

This smells of bare-faced, two-faced cheek.

Punish them, I say. Put them all on a boat and send it out to sea, and there rise a great tempest against them and subject them to the lashings and beatings of the wind and the tide for ten years, until in meek penance they return to this island begging the forgiveness of its ordinary common folk, who are suffering mightily from their grave mismanagement of the economy.

Oh, and in the meantime, vote for Lugh Lamhfada.

Fianna Failure - no we can't

I can’t quite explain all my feelings on this week’s emergency budget, but I could attempt to sum it up in a couple of words:

“FECK YE ALL YE SHOWER OF GOBSHEENS”.

Yes, that’ll do it. Lousy feckers. And to think, they ploughed up the beautiful green soil in the Gabhra valley, between the rolling hills of Skryne and Tara, for this monstrous “road to nowhere” called the M3. It’s bad enough that they’ve increased my taxes, but to take the axe to the childcare supplement (poor Cúchulainn) is a shameful act. And then to add the utmost insult to the most grievous injury, the Government went and bailed out the banks and builders who were primarily responsible for getting us into this mess in the first place.

By the power of the Gobann Saor I’ll smash this little party of bandits who dare to call themselves the ‘Soldiers of Destiny’ into a billion smitherines. They’ll come out of the local elections with a national total of about three seats if I’ve got anything to do with it.

Even better, I’ll run for election myself. My platform will be this: jobs and peace of mind for all. I’ll be the Irish Obama, except I’m more transparent than him. Oh, I don’t mean metaphorically, I mean literally. I’m a spectre, remember? !

Here is my election Manifesto:

Lugh of the Long Arm will deliver jobs, will safeguard hospitals against downgrading, will reward those who have worked for the economy, will punish those who haven’t (I love those lightning bolts out of my fingers), stop all useless road projects, start some decent railway projects, prevent the introduction of third level fees, introduce whoopee cushions as an integral part of Dáil entertainment, bring back ice-cream onto the schools meal menu and make playing the Nintendo Wii for at least an hour a day compulsory in the workplace.

I also propose that any houses which have been built and are vacant are auctioned off to the lowest bidder so that hard-working families in this country can have somewhere to live without spending the next 40 years of their lives strangled by crippling mortgage debt.

Yes indeed folks. Change has come to Ireland. Out of misery and despair, let us forge hope and encouragement.

Yes we can.

Dun Dealgan versus Droichead Atha

Well well well, if it ain't the big derby between Dundawk and the Drogs. I've been asked many times this week to state my loyalties on this issue. Who am I for? Who do I want to win?

Well, as a Louth man, or should I say, a Louth "deity", I would be very happy with an outcome which saw a Louth team winning.

Take from that what you will.

What's ten percent of ten percent ?

People all over Ireland were jumping up and down and whooping with delight recently when Bord Gais announced it would "enter" the electricity market with lower prices than the ESB.

I can't say I wasn't thrilled. In fact, I organised a phantom crossroads Céili with some of the fairy folk to celebrate. It takes a hell of a lot of power to light and heat an ancient stone chamber. And no matter how long the heating's on for, the stone walls are always cold. And what with all those otherworldly figures breezing round the place, the old Tí Lugh tends to be a bit on the nippy side.

Muggins here was straight on the phone to this Bord Gáis fellow. Turns out his name wasn't Bord at all, but rather Gareth. Nice chap. I could sign up immediately, he told me. All he needed was my bank account details and a copy of a home phone bill plus photo ID like a driver's licence. As you can imagine, not the sort of paperwork a chief of the Tuatha Dé Danann carries around on his or her person as a matter of course. I don't have a bank account, not having any need for money. As a god, I am entitled to things so I don't have to buy anything. I don't drive, because it's quicker for me to zip round the place in my normal fashion. The home phone bill was easy. I just sent him a copy of my last ESB bill. Feckers charged me 700 euro. I could run an entire amusement park, you know, one of those with millions of coloured lights, for less.

Imagine my chagrin, nay my absolute thunderous anger, when the ESB cynically announced they were going to reduce their bills by 10%. Hmmm, now I wonder where that idea came from. I turned seven shades of crimson red and cringed my teeth so hard you could hear them crunching in Tipperary.

Now I have a choice to make. Do I stay with ESB with their 10% reduction, or do I go ahead and change over to Bord Gáis? Well, the choice is obvious as far as I'm concerned. I have to go with Bord Gáis, because they promise to be at least 10% cheaper than ESB, even if the ESB is 10% cheaper than before.

Try to keep up with me here. Basically what I'm trying to say is that if ESB cuts its bills by 10%, Bord Gáis will still be 10% cheaper than ESB and if ESB make more cuts, Bord Gáis will, apparently, live up to its promise.

Well, they'd better do so. Otherwise I'll unleash the seven plagues of the Badb on every one of them.

If I miss as little as a second of my favourite TV programme, Desperate Housewives, because of an interruption to my power supply, I'll set the Connaught army on them.

Mmmmm, Eva Longoria . . . . .

What? Even a Celtic god has his fantasies !

I'm naturally suspicious when someone calls to my passage-tomb

Just in case I never told you before, I'm naturally suspicious of anyone who comes knocking on my front door.

The fact that I live in a 5,000-year-old underground passage-tomb should, of course, result in fewer visitors than a normal, say, three-bed semi in a Dundalk housing estate.

For instance, just a few weeks ago I had an Eircom guy around offering me a sensational deal on an Eircom Phone Watch alarm. Now, it took me some time, and no amount of gentle persuasion, to convince this fellow that I am not in need of such a device.

Typical salesman, he wasn't taking no for an answer. So after about an hour of being patient with him, I eventually had to scare the bejaysus out of him by getting my son Cúchulainn to perform one of his warped spasm feats. And it wasn't pleasant, I can tell you. I'd say Mr. Salesman is having a few disturbed dreams of late. The boul Cookie, as I call him (short for Cúchulainn), pulled his face into his head and popped his brains out his ears. I won't even tell you what came out his rear end. After vomiting on my doorstep, if you could call it that, the Eircom man ran for the hills and hasn't been seen since.

You see, I tried to explain that there are no actual corporeal beings living in my stone chamber, and that motion sensors would be no use in a situation where the only occupants of a building were in spirit form. But this guy just wouldn't listen. He kept blabbering on about security this and intruders that and motion sensors the other.

I tried to tell him no-one would dare enter my domain, even if they could find it. My address is not in the phone book, and the postman doesn't know it exists. It's a wee bit off the beaten track, in a field on the side of a hill outside Ardee. The last time I had a visitor was in 1789 and such was the scare he got his story has been widespread in local folklore ever since. I set the Cailleach Bhéara on him. Frightened the poor divil out of his skin.

I'm the sort of fellow who does not normally welcome visitors. Especially because I've got a whole sleeping army of enchanted warriors in the deepest chambers of my underground lair. They don't take kindly to being woken, because they're in a 1,000-year sleep and only a six-fingered hero can wake them from the spell. But more of that another time.

One succinct point I also raised with the Phone Watch guy was that I don't, in fact, have a telephone. I mean what Celtic god would need a phone, given our ability to communicate with any of our kind across vast distances? Just last week, I had a chat with my old mate Bodb Dearg, a Tipperary chief, for a whole hour and it cost me nothing. If I had a phone, the same conversation would cost me a fortune - probably half the gold buried under all the ringforts of Ireland.

Anyhow, I won't make light of a situation in Dundalk where an intruder posing as a water company worker stole a 70-year-old woman's handbag. Admittedly it's the sort of thing that many people could be duped by. A guy arrives saying he's going to test the water (remember the lead in water scare recently?) and you think, well, better let him in and make sure my water's okay. And ten minutes later he's gone and so is your money.

It's just an awful pity I wasn't around to help. This poor woman must be very shaken up by the ordeal. How many of you, if someone who looked like a council worker or a water company employee or an ESB official called to your door, would ask them for ID and show immediate suspicion of them? Let's be honest, your natural inclination is to hold back on the suspicion because you don't want to be rude to them if they're genuine. But that's the reality these days. You should always ask the person for ID and if you're still suspicious, ask them to wait a moment, close the door on them and phone someone nearby to come down to your house, just in case.

If I get my hands on the culprit, heaven help him. I'll set the Hound of Culann on him and it'll make a warp spasm look like a picnic party.

Snow in Dundalk, at last

At last the snow came to Dundalk. Just when it seemed the whole country was going to be covered in white with the exception of our fine town, along came the snow in sufficient enough amounts to allow the kids have a ball, if you pardon the pun.

It's been the coldest winter since 1991, according to the experts, and the unusually long cold spell has seen some parts of the country blanketed with snow numerous times. But not poor old Dundalk. No. Whether it's the shadow of the mountains or some other mystic force (you'd think being a Celtic god I might know what's behind it, wouldn't you?), the snow usually misses Dundalk, even if the rest of Ireland is at a complete standstill in blizzard conditions.

Well, not to fear. We got our sprinkling, and enough to allow the making of snowmen and the throwing of snowballs. Even the boul Cúchulainn was out making ice balls to knock about the place with his hurley stick. For once, Ice House Hill park had the conditions befitting its name.

Now that the thaw is well and truly on, I can promise you it will snow again. But when is the question. It might not come along for another five years judging by recent years . . .

Two proper nouns sum up heroism and cheer

There are two words, or rather proper nouns, which appeared in international headlines in January which momentarily lifted us out of the gloom of global recession. They are proper nouns associated with a good news story, one of just a scarce few to come our way during the dark post-Christmas days when bad news was all over the place.

What are these two proper nouns I speak of?

Chesley Sullenberger.

Yawha? I hear you all thunder in unison, your mouths agape at such a seemingly unfamiliar name.

Well, fear not. As I look out across the plains of Muirthemne from my otherworldly realm, I hark back to that day, January 16th, and it brings a warm smile to my face. I shall enlighten you.

For those unfamiliar with his name, let me refresh your memory. Chesley was the captain of a US Airways Airbus plane which ditched into the Hudson river minutes after take-off from New York. His plane flew into a flock of unfortunate brent geese, some of whom were ingested by his aircraft's engines. While some planes can survive a small bird ingestion, more than one bird being sucked into the engine usually spells big trouble. And Big Trouble came with capital B and T for Capt. Sullenberger because half the flock was sucked into his Airbus turbofans. He lost power at about 3,200 feet and ran out of time and power to get back to any airport, so made the quick decision to ditch into the Hudson river. After successfully putting his bird down on water, and getting all his passengers off alive (miraculously, not one was killed although a few were injured), the Captain calmly strolled down the aircraft to check everyone was out and was the last person to leave the aircraft, despite the danger that it could sink in the icy waters. He was the last one to step into a lifeboat. What a hero.

It's heroism like this that marked out the special ones of the Tuatha Dé Danann, you know. Those of us who were to become the immortal gods were the supreme champions of our race. If he lived in Ireland, Mr. Sullenberger would be made very welcome in the halls of Tara for a feast befitting a great warrior or hero. We would regale him with our tales of conquests and heroism, and he could recount his remarkable tale over much ale-swilling and fine wine slurping. It's been many a year since we had a hero of his like sit in the guest's seat in the banqueting hall on fair Tara. I'll make sure he gets an invitation.

One of my minnions told me after the incident that the captain must have pressed the "DITCH" button on his Airbus before putting it onto the river. I laughed heartily, asking if the "Ditch" button was anywhere near the "Take-off" button or the "Land" button. But my acquaintance assured me that there is a "ditch" button in the Airbus, which closes any vents and hatches and ensures the aircraft is properly sealed in the event of such a drastic measure. Well I never. Technology these days is remarkable.

Anyway, to brave Captain Sullenberger, his copilot and crew, we bow down low and salute your bravery. You brought us cheer and delight during dark times.