Vengeance is a dish.

No, that’s it. Just a dish. A big, scrumptious, dreamy dish, best served seven ways from sundown if that’s your fancy, with a cherry on top and one of those crisp caramel lattices rammed in, like a tasty, tasty shark fin. Vengeance is a concept rich and fruity, a notion that melts on the tongue – an idea to indulge in when the nights are drawing in and you’ve got two pairs of socks on, drinking Bovril under a Dunnes Stores throw on the couch. I fully support a bit of vengeance, so long as its kept in one’s own head and well away from me.

I like to imagine a healthy dose of vengeance from time to time, you see. Certainly envisioning how it would roll off the shovel is so much safer than actually going out there and trying the stuff; vengeance tends to be rather more volatile in real life, backfiring on all cylinders and burning your eyebrows black. Besides, vocalising the whole thing gives quite enough of a naughty tingle to quench most of those dark, dark thirsts; there’s a satisfying tingle to muttering, “I hope she gets sodomised by a coked-up hippopotamus, the evil, boyfriend-stealing tramp.” Especially if someone hears you, and approves. Or joins in.

So yeah, vengeance as a concept is a comfortable, happy sort of thing, healthy and heady in just the correct ratio. And wishing ill on random people is not just cathartic, it’s creative … good for the juices, the vodka to the tomato. Coming up with just punishments for the niggly little things that bother me daily is the only way I have of dealing with them. I certainly can’t shove the person walking slowly in front of me into the path of a tank; not legally, anyway. The punishment fits the crime only in my sensitive little noggin; in general, it’s not socially acceptable to murder those tottering through life, no matter how many times you’ve stubbed your toes over their shambolic shuffling. Plus, tanks are hard to find, even on the mean streets of little Cork City.

So of course, the first thing I wanted to do when I heard that it’s now illegal to blaspheme in Ireland was to run up to President McAleese, ram a false idol (fashioned after Dermot Ahern) up her jacksie, and roar, “My god had your god’s mother twice last Saturday and her minge smelled AWFUL!” until spit flecked her face like an overworked piebald swinging a racing cart round the Red Cow Roundabout. Which is a lot more reserved than that which I’d do to Mr. Ahern himself …

Except I wouldn’t, would I? The natural rebellion within us Irish – the natural rebellion within anyone still alive – demands that we rail by composing offensive materials in our heads and in our hearts, but not really at Dermot Ahern’s face or President McAleese’s posterior. The new Defamation law demands a close look with a critical eye, and there are those out there who’ve given us that, and who’ll continue to eloquently do battle entirely in legalese for the good of the rest of us … but the rest of us? We’ll kneejerk into stand-up comedy, of course. We’ll giggle and stitch together nonsensical cusses and swearwords, because what the government gave us yesterday isn’t a new law, or guideline, or breach of our right to linguistic merriment!

It’s a challenge!

Have a pointless, blasphemous … but fun weekend, coddlers!