Sheilahs

Like Síles but browner.

And friendlier.

What’s not to like?

Did I mention they also play footy?

The Matildas - otherwise known as the Australian Women's Football Team. No, seriously.

Not That Sort of Story

Once upon a time – two children.

The genders are an irrelevance.  This is not the sort of story where the hero grows up and marries the heroine.  But – for the record – they were a boy and a girl.  The girl was determined; the boy stubborn – or maybe it was the other way round.   In any case, they were much too alike to get on.

On their own, they fought all the time. Over everything.  And nothing.   When bored, they even fought for the sake of fighting.   A war of sabotage and sniping.  Some of the things they said to and about one another were quite terrible.

But it was a war in which no third parties were permitted to join.  A war between themselves only.  As against the rest of the world, they were united.  As – for particular reasons – they needed to be.

Time passes and children grow up.  As life is not a fairy tale, they do not marry.  This is just as well.  There would have been no happily ever after.  The girl would have become a bore and the boy a bully.  Or maybe the other way round.  Either way, they would have ended up killing one another.

The boy is going gray now and he doesn’t like to admit it.  The girl is not going gray, but when she smiles the lines at the corners of her mouth stay in place for just a little bit longer each time.

The two of them don’t see one another very often now.  The boy has his own family, they live in different countries and emailing someone you’ve grown up with just isn’t the same, somehow.

When they do meet, they still bring out the worst in one another.

But one thing remains the same.  As against the world, they are still allies.

La femme parfaite

Cheveux roux: oui

Gros seins: oui

De plus de 5 pieds 8 pouces: oui

Moins de 25 ans: oui

Naissance aristocratique: oui

La capacité de bien paraître en uniforme de l’infirmière: stratosphérique

Ahhhh, Joséphine…

Spring/Summer 2011: Shoot me now, already

 

Ruffles, floral prints and clashing colors - very Summer 2011

The must-have women’s fashions for Spring/Summer 2011, according to the Daily Flail:-

1.  Ruffles

For those men who like their woman to look like Liberace.  Or Hyacinth Bucket (see photo above).  Note to ye wimmen: boobs we like.  Ruffles and boobs though, are just scary.

2.  Clashing Blocks of Electric Colour

Have you ever seen an Irish woman in cobalt blue mixed with saffron?  ‘Tis not a pretty sight.

3.  Cropped flared jeans

For some years now, cropped jeans have been the multi-taskers of the jean world, effortlessly making long-stemmed girls look gawky and shorter ones look stumpy. The flare is only going to make things worse by drawing attention to the very part of the body that cropped jeans so cruelly disfigure.

4.  Wide-leg trousers

One word.  Pyjamas.

5.  Floral Prints

Inevitably, combined with ruffles.  See Hyacinth Bucket comment above X 2.   The resolutely determined survival of the tea dress (possibly the most unflattering garment known to woman) never fails to surprise me.

6.  Dresses over Trousers

Ah Christ.  Did I ever tell you I was a leg man?  They might as well bring back the burka, and have done with it.

7.  Glitter Eye-Makeup

Designed to accentuate every line and crevice.

8.  Bangles

I’ve suffered severe trauma at the sight of these ever since being whacked across the face by a bangle-wearing vixen in 1989, for getting a little fresh at the school dance.  It took two months for the scars to fully fade, and my right eyebrow never grew back properly.  I can foresee the same thing happening again, if this fashion takes off.

9.   Evening Jumpsuit

No, this is not going to be the year when men fall in love with the jumpsuit.  Culottes with a top attached.

9.   Jesus Sandal

There was a reason Mary Magdalene went barefoot.  I foresee a long hot voluntarily celibate summer of 2011.

Well, at least men’s fashion couldn’t be worse.

Or could it?

And I’m Back….

It’s been a while.  Probably none of you left now.

Which has the advantage of my being able to be a little more, well, honest, than would otherwise have been the case.

It hasn’t just been my mojo that went missing following the birth of my sixth last June.  Things have been a little bit tight with regard to funds.   So bad, in fact, that I had to up sticks, and head off to pastures new, for the last few months, leaving the girls & kids behind.  

Hadn’t the energy to go near this site, or even SD’s, while I was away.  Frankly, I was afraid of getting homesick.

But I’m back now, for Christmas, at any rate. I see SD’s linked to me  so I’d better give her readers something to justify this.  There’s a couple of things that I’ve been wanting to say for some time, so expect a few new posts over the next week or so.  

Unto the Next Generation

 

 

I don’t normally do serious very well.  Most of the time, I prefer to be light-hearted.  Irony is a great defence for someone who fears looking like a fool. Or rather, looking like an accidental fool.  In fact, I fear so much looking like an accidental fool accidentally, that I usually try to make my self look like a fool on purpose.  Ironically, y’know.   Of course, this means no one ever, ever takes me seriously.  Even when I’m being, well, quite serious.   And that no one ever really knows what I’m like.   So I never know if the people who like me really like me or not.  But then, does anyone?

In any case I just wanted to put my readers on alert that I do have my serious side, and that this is a relatively serious (by my standards at least) post.  You see, I like music.  A lot.  One of the abiding regrets of my life is that I rendered a very good friend of mine tone-deaf at the age of six when I hit her in the left ear with a croquet mallet.  The fact that she was determined enough to subsquently proceed to Grade VIII in Piano on sight-reading alone alleviated my guilt partially, but not totally.

My observation, based on years on the periphery of the Irish music business, starting as a 12 year old and continuing, well, right up to the present day, is that there are an awful lot of very talented young musicians out there.  The difficulty is, they never get a break.  Busking in Grafton Street is not as big a moneyspinner as people would think.  I know.  I’ve tried it.   Pre-Celtic Tiger admittedly but it’s a well known fact that people don’t necessarily get any more generous with street artists in times of plenty.  Quite the contrary in fact.

Given that none of the big boys in the music business here pay tax, one would expect that they might actually reach out a helping hand to a few talented kids.  Maybe give a bit of money for grants, and so forth.  But no way Joey.   What the big boys in the music business, like the big boys in every fucking business in this fucking insular, peasant, greasy hand straight from greasy till up greasy skirt country are interested in is very simple.   Their own.  

If you’re a kid of someone in the music business, or the media business, or indeed the politicial business (for that’s what it is) you pretty much have it sewn up here.  Not only will you get looked after, while more talented kids have to give up and go into the Civil Service or some such, but no one will ever fucking say the truth.  That you’re only there because of Daddy (or, occasionally, Mummy, Granddaddy or even Great-Granddaddy).  Instead, you will be lauded by a masturbating fuck in a totty tabloid masquerading as a broadsheet as the most talented, the most beautiful and just the most all-round wonderful guy or gal since … well since that masturbating fuck climbed out of his mother’s womb in some side-pit of Hades somewhere.  Even if you have a face like a piggy, a voice like chalk squeaking on a blackboard, the notch count of a small developing country and the empathy of a turtle on valium.

It beggars belief that we complained about the British establishment for so many years only to introduce, as soon as we got the opportunity, an Establishment of our own.  Only at least with the aristocracy we weren’t expected to say how fucking brilliant they were and pretend they got it on merit.   Tax breaks are all very well but there’s a lot to be said for reducing the scale of the breaks in direct proportion to the nepotism shown by the taxee.  Maybe use the money obtained to actually give some of the kids struggling from gig to gig, hoping against hope that they won’t have to give it all up and go into the Office of Rateable Valuation, a chance. 

And although I think male quotas are definitely the way to go for the Presidency, there’s no damn way Bertie is getting my vote.  At least with a gay President we won’t have to hear about his kids.

You Know Your Woman Loves You When She Knits You a Condom Amulet

Have taken down original image of man-thonged men in gym accompanying my previous post on Alpha Male Undies, because, quite frankly and no offence to those who are, no homo me.

Sorry.

If you have returned to this site specifically to view this image (shame on you) you can see it on broadsheet.ie here (thanks for the linkage, guys).

Just to prove that man-thongs transcend sexual preference, here is a photo of a knitted man-thong (unoccupied). We know that this is a heterosexual man-thong because it comes with ‘built-in condom amulet.’

Guys, nothing shows a woman’s love for you more than a manthong knitted with her own fair hands.   See here for pattern and below for back view.   Now I know what to tell the many mothers of my children I want for Christmas.

PS: despite appearances, this post has not been written by the William Hague Constituency Office.