And as it turns out, I’m no adult.

God, I was polluted. Polluted. I proposed Jagermeister as an aperitif for the masses. I’ve was almost Christ-like in the amount of times I wobbled and fell over. I told every one of my colleagues exactly what I thought of them, which is worse than it sounds, because alcohol severely short-circuits my enthusiasm inhibitor. I’m like the company’s one-woman cheerleading squad.

“You’re marvellous, you are. You’re so great with clients. And your eyes are only beautiful. I want us to be friends forever. Why don’t we spend more time together? We don’t spend enough time together.”

It’s horrendous, because I like to think of myself as poised, intelligent, dynamic, forward-thinking, great company … oh, hold on, I’m reading from our corporate literature. The sentiment corresponds, though. I have a much higher opinion of myself than my actions warrant. My ambition far exceeds my capabilities as a functioning fucking person. Whenever I get too much alcohol into me, I turn into some sort of graceless bouncing ball of dribbly enthusiasm. It fucking kills me.

Well, don’t drink, then. Logic, no?

You’d think it would be easier than it is to follow the logical path. I’m not a huge fan of alcoholic drinks, taste-wise. I like a nice jammy red wine, and the odd cold pint of cider, and the lighter-tasting beers like that girly, girly Corona. Other than that, though, I’m quite hard to please. I often find myself stumped in pubs, with an audience of cranky barpersons tapping their talons off the bar and rolling their eyes at my humming and hawing. Perhaps I just shouldn’t drink. I wouldn’t be missing much, let’s face it.

Yet I persist. I find that if I don’t make a conscious decision at the start of the night to watch my intake, I get as drunk as a skunk and have to be sectioned for the sanity of strangers, all of whom are WONDERFUL and should be MY FRIENDS FOR LIFE because we are so COMPATIBLE. I’m not alone, either. I could tell you a thousand stories involving drunken gobshites. Friends twisting ankles in nightclubs. Other friends lying down in the middle of the road, crying. Friends starting fights with other friends, but not the other friends that were lying down in the middle of the road, other friends again. It’s a kaleidoscope of preposterously irresponsible carry-on, and one that, at twenty-eight, I’m far too fucking old for. Binge drinking isn’t just a health hazard; it’s a calamitous embarrassment. I don’t know why I do it – to keep up with the lads? Because the drink is there and I can’t say no to a free soaking? I’m covered in bruises and most of them are from my beating myself up about the whole thing; the rest of them are from falling out of my five-inch heels and my dignity.

God almighty.

I’m no lush; I don’t crave alcohol, nor drink every day, nor even every weekend. I don’t have the need for alcohol that I have for caffeine; if I had to give up my espresso, I’d struggle. I don’t feel like there would be a struggle if I gave up the sauce. So why don’t I give up the fucking sauce? Because how boring would nights out be without the fucking sauce?! GOD HELP US ALL!

Is this what the Christmas season is all about? Getting trolleyed? I don’t like being drunk, and I can’t stand hangovers, and I’m getting to the stage in my life where I have to take a long hard look at myself and the image of said self that I want to present to the world. Falling over in front of the MD won’t cut it.

I’m a grown-up. Honest to God. Now all I have to do is start believing it and acting like it.

Take it easy this silly season, readers. I ain’t going to say Don’t Drink, because I’ll doubtless forget all this mortification and have a tipple or two before the … hour is out. I’ll probably make a twat of myself again before the year is out, and wonder if I shouldn’t cut out such behaviour to spare morning-after blushes, because I’m hopelessly impressionable, and getting worse. Yeah. But you lot should take it easy.

I won’t be back here on Coddlepot for a good week or so, because I have things to do and people to apologise to. Fie on me and my Irish liver.

Happy Christmas.

Although I don’t know why I hate milk, it’s my best guess that I hate the colour white because I hate milk. I know butter comes from milk, but it doesn’t bother me. I know that “white” does not equals “milk”, but it bothers me rotten, regardless. What a fucking hue it is – boring, prone to discolouration, about as flattering as Speedos sewn by left-handed homophobes. I married in a golden dress, you know. I don’t own even one pair of white socks, no crisp white shirt … there’s never been a single greying undergarment on my clothesline. And yes, maybe milk has something to do with that (although it would be rather wonktacular of my psyche to have permitted it), but also, let’s face it, I’m Irish. And the Irish are simultaneously ruddy and pale; the colour of our faces shifts and blends like a Japanese tea ritual performed in a canoe. White clothing does not suit the Irish.

Which is odd, because we’re so fucking fond of it. Even the jersey of our national football team is a poxy shade of nothing, so we wander like great fucking blancmanges, our heads balanced like nipply cherries on top. Red of face with a wishy-washy chest? Hmph. White does not suit the Irish.

Young Irish men, in particular, are very fond of the colour white. Trackie pants, footy jerseys, hoodies, t-shirts … Irish boys clad themselves a whiter shade of stale, and they’re oblivious to it. It’s all made possible by Irish Mammies and their addiction to Daz, bleach and hands scrubbed raw. Irish boys in blinding ivory tend to be of a certain social class *coughcoughworking*, as do Irish Mammies who can’t get off the tumbledrier. Surrounded by my male cousins and friends up at home, I look like a chess piece in serious trouble. So I hate the colour white. Hate it. But you can’t take away an Irish Mammy’s right to dazzle, nor the right of an Irish fella to cow opponents with his milky, milky wardrobe. The whiter the wardrobe, the rougher the neck; a boy who’s box-fresh will box you sour, no doubt about it.

But I’ll put up with a ghostly gobshite, because like I said, they’re my cousins and mates and I love them; I know they’re just accessorising with their Silk Cuts. So long as a fellas’ knickers aren’t white underneath the Adidas strides.

Jesus, I hate white kecks on a man. White underwear belongs on nanas’ washing lines, nowhere else, which is why I call them knickers. A skanger should never look like a flat-chested nun on disrobing. Even Jean Paul Gaultier falls into the knickerific horror, with his insistence on putting acceptably perfect male models into biniki bottoms.

I don’t agree with this. There is no excuse for a man’s looking like Ursula Andress from the waist down. Even worse when our gussetted friend is standing up …

I mean, c’mon. Mike Baldwin made sexier kecks than that. Yer man above has a very nice bottom, I’m sure; he probably even shaves it. But from where I’m sitting, he looks like an elderly aunt who’s half a sneaky fart away from a skidmark. I shouldn’t be thinking that! I wouldn’t, if he was wearing black jocks, or Superman jocks, or, God help us, if he was Commando and all over the shop. But white? High-waisted white? The arse he got from a divine sculptor, his smalls on offer at Tesco. It’s just wrong, Jean Paul! WRONG!

Why do us Irish plebs feel most comfortable in Tippex’d runners? Can a male model be trusted to avoid skid-addling in his kecks? Was this whole blog post a ruse to find out what colour thong Old Knudsen’s wearing? I’m no more interested in delving into psychoanalysis than you are, dear reader; I’m not all that bothered as to whether there’s a deeper reason for my aversion to all things pure and colourless. Milk-related, or am I just of superior fashion sense? Who cares. I hate white. We shouldn’t attempt it. And I worry that really ghey fragrance ads could have a detrimental effect, even in a country plagued by chalky bollixes. Chalky, ugly bollixes. Ugh. I’m leaving.

With so many irks of national importance, or impotence, or whatever, it’s difficult to manage my anger, to spread it out in focused, constructive rants. What does one do when one is angry at things much, much bigger than oneself? What does one do when the issues run so deep and banjax so many, when the perpetrators cannot be touched because razing an ivory tower is even more difficult than it sounds? Where the fuck do I go with this rage? Who the fuck can I launch it at?

I don’t have the answers, but the amount of fwd: fwd: fwd: mail I’m getting in the last week is really helping distract me.

There are people out there with my email address that really shouldn’t be allowed next nor near the net. I’m not talking about spammers! Russian brides trying to sell me Rolex-branded Viagra through Facebook verification … no, nothing of the sort. I’m talking about people from this era, from this society … real fucking people! People who should know their arse from their elbow, friends and colleagues and aunties and buds who I’ve willingly surrounded myself with … so the whole thing might be my fault, really. I’ve opened the gates of madness and the gobshites have wandered in, dragging themselves on their arses and drooling into their nosebags. Brian Lenihan is obnoxious, callous and cushioned from reality, but at least he’s not a fucking numbskull who surprises me every time he remembers to put his knickers on one leg at a time.

Not like the imbeciles who send me emails telling me I’m going to “lose my family” if I don’t copy and forward within eight minutes. I’m sorry, guys, you’re my nearest and dearest and all, but what the fuck? Are people that moronic that they think not forwarding a nasty, badly written piece of cybertoss will kill their kittens and cripple their nans? WHO THE FUCK BELIEVES THIS? “Ooh, better safe than sorry!” is the sheepish dribble, leading me to believe that some of my email contacts spend their lives phoning psychic hotlines and asking the lunatic on the other end for financial advice while their fucking brains trickle out their noses. When they’re not forwarding me superstitious glurge written with the skill of a moose genuflecting on a keyboard, that is. Absolute cuntosity of the highest order. Even if you were that superstitious, and even if you had something nearing an excuse for it, like that you once rear-ended a witchdoctor on the Red Cow Roundabout (not a euphemism), do you care that little about me that you’ll gladly point your fucking demons in my direction? “See her, Lucifer? She boos when Leona Lewis comes on the telly, she deserves your wrath next!” Wither on up the daisy chain, is that it? YOU ARE FUCKING STUPID CUNTS! Go back to smearing shit in your hair in the corner, thank you.

People who try to feck their boogymen in my direction are bad, but by no means are they any worse than the spatulas who claim that if I don’t forward their twee, fluffy poem about friendship and/or Gawd, I am heartless or deficient or dead on the inside. May their teeth shrivel and their nostrils cave outwards! Since when is it a measure of heart or high regard to shunt purple prose up someone’s arse? If someone tells me that my failing to send back … send back! … a picture of a fucking calico cat with Me Wuv My Fwends written under it is symptom of my dismissal of their best intentions, they’re ABSOLUTELY FUCKING RIGHT. Never send me Hallmark rhymes, virtual kisses, or related pixelated fucktardery; I take to it about as well as an albatross does to a Trivial Pursuit tournament. Take your glitter text and fuck off. Have I said fuck off enough times in this post? I think it could take another. FUCK OFF.

Now, it’s not right that the spaz-dance of the fwd: fwd: mails should distract me when there is so much of real worth and consequence that I could be dissecting. Sometimes, real anger is far too big a deal for a comedy blog; you’ll never have the impact with satire that you will with a heartfelt expression, not when it comes to such issues as those casting shadows in Ireland at the moment. So I focus on throwaway stupidity, and something we can all share and roll our eyes at. It beats telling you lot that I’m no longer proud of being Irish, doesn’t it?

Small mercies, I suppose. Which is why I’m happy that we all giggle at this for the time being …

Good, innit?

The Five Worst Christmas Ads Ever.

Coz tis never the season to be a thundering cunt.

Before we start, I think we should accept that potentially great Christmas ads are recognised fast and wheeled out year after year, as is right and true and honest. But bad Christmas ads tend to be swiftly strangled, which is why there are no classic bad ads below. Well, apart from number 5, which is of a theme that repeats like a brown sauce sandwich. Ooh, look! Here it is!

5: Boots’ “Here Come The Girls”

The concept isn’t a bad one. Chirruping office workers go on their Christmas do, do the secret Santa thing, coo at each other, and generally have a Larf. To the tune of Sugababes’ hideous version of Ernie K-Doe’s “Here Come The Girls”. Ah, hark at the sting in the tail! Hark at it over, and over, and over again, year after year after …

4: Bothar’s Christmas Goat.

Jesus. A goat with ADHD. What a pain in the arse. I hope they eat him as soon as he arrives. He’s fuck all use for anything else, what with being male – no milk or cheese from this little cuntbucket. I’m guessing young master goat is supposed to tickle Irish kids into invoking pester power, which is great for the third world and all, unless you throw the telly out the window as soon as the ad comes on, which is counter-productive, Bothar. I WANT TO LIKE YOUR ADS, BOTHAR!

3: Vodafone’s White Christmas.

Bloke wants to do something special for his girlfriend for Christmas. With the awesome power of Communication (helpfully facilitated by the nice peeps at Vodafone and whoever Gilliam’d up Joe Duffy’s head), he manages to put together a real white Christmas for her; she looks out the window to see him standing knee-deep in a snow drift. Isn’t that romantic? Well, it is until he says, “It’s the little things that make my girl smile”. CREATING A WINTER THAT DOES NOT NATURALLY OCCUR IN A TEMPERATE CLIMATE IS NOT A FUCKING LITTLE THING! It’s a very big thing! It’s HUGE! What a demanding bitch! What a suitably gloating toad she’s paired with! What kind of standards are these to be batting about in a recession? These people belong in a Barry’s Tea ad!

2: 3 Mobile’s Paul and Claire.

Paul, on the other hand, wants to get Claire a gift that doesn’t cost the Earth or involve pussyfooting around Joe Duffy. He buys her a poxy little phone. She responds by taking all her clothes off. Who the fuck came up with this concept? The lovechild of  Peter Stringfellow and the fucking Grinch?

But even an ad telling us that “gurls r slutz 4 fones, liek” cannot match the pompous scuzz coming up next. Yes, it’s the Meteor Carol-Off. Of course it is.

1: Meteor’s Carol Off.

Look at that face. Is that not a face you want to kiss with a jack-hammer? This tuneless bollocks and his tuneless friends use Meteor’s marvellous network to get together more tuneless cunts because some proper carol singers are trying to save the world from their smug, tuneless tunelessness. Then he, and his intimidating tuneless brethren, wave off the proper carol singers who’ve bothered to learn to sing and to wash their faces, dooming the rest of us to a tuneless, tuneless hell. Is this what Christmas is all about? Well, fat bearded men, yes, but not fat bearded cunts who’ll stand around for hours in the cold, waiting for their horrible posse to arrive, just to prove that they’re louder than a band of harmonious nobodies. God, I hate this ad. It’s even worse than the one with Cheryl Cole lying through her fake teeth about the merits of revitalising, replenishing shampoo when she’s got a full head of extensions sewn into her vapid little bonce. IT’S JUST TERRIBLE.

What do you lot think? Be gentle in your criticism of my criticism; I’m quite unwell, and plan to remain that way for some time. Red wine is an evil, evil thing.

I think it’s high time we had a critical sconse at the whole ruckus. And y’know, people complain about having Christmas ads on the telly so soon, but at the end of the day, they’re not going to do much fucking good if broadcast for the first time on Christmas Eve, now, are they? “Whatever should I get Aunt Bridgie for Christmas? Maybe I’ll give a give a give a give a Garmin! Oh fuck, the shops are closed! Humbug!” and so on and so forth. We need a good run of Christmas ads, lest we be forced to employ exhausting creativity in our gift-buying decisions. Leave the soulless advertising executives and their marketing minions alone! They’ve brought us so much premature Yuletide joy; without them, we wouldn’t have …

The Five Best Christmas Ads Ever!

Coz I don’t care how fucking early in the year it is!

5: John Lewis’ “Remember How Christmas Used To Feel”.

I do have a heart. I keep it in a box under my bed. It flutters a bit when this ad comes on the telly, even though there’s a version of the utterly ‘orrible Sweet Child O’ Mine playing over the images of childlike awe and wonderment. Yes, I said Sweet Child O’ Mine is ‘orrible. No, I didn’t just mean that particular cover version. Anyway, John Lewis reminds us that presents are great, and you can’t argue with that, because they are. Even if you can’t buy theirs in Ireland.

4: Penneys. Got A Whole Lot Of Things For Christmas. Got A Lot For The Family.

Tra la la la! We need more ads that have choirs singing tra la la la! If there were less versions of Sweet Child O’ Mine and more tra la la las in the world, then it would definitely snow for Christmas in Ireland. To demonstrate the power of this mighty jingle, sit a load of twenty-something strangers in a room. Then have one of them start the Penneys song, and they’ll be all pissing themselves in jolly camaraderie before you know it. The smell won’t be great, but the atmosphere will. So long as you don’t smell it.

3: Kellogg’s “Ho Ho Ho”.

As a child, I thought it was mighty for teaching me the word “unorthodox”. As an adult, it makes me as weepy as a bolt-on boob. OH GOD IT’S SO CUTE! SHE’S WEARING JAMMIES! SHE SAYS HO HO HO! I CAN BARELY STAND IT!

2: An Post’s “Walking In The Air”

It’s basically the Aled Jones bit from the snowman, with a couple of added letters swirling into a postbox at the end. It’s still brilliance on a schtick. Plus it leaves out the bit where the bloody Snowman melts at the end and drowns your childhood in a puddle of slush; surely that’s all you ever asked for?

But even snowmen, magic, and breakfast cereals pale in comparison to the next tear-jerker, the most Irish Christmas ad ever conceived by man or beast. It’s got hints of emigration! It’s got shit weather! It’s… got … MAMMIES! It’s…

1: The ESB Going Home Ad.

There’s not a soul in Ireland who doesn’t feel this ad like Oprah feels her fans. For Christ’s sake, I was crying screen-grabbing the image. Set to Dusty Springfield’s “Going Back”, TV3’s Alan Hughes is driven home to the ould farmhouse where Mammy’s been going mad making the dinner and turning down the leaba. Watching this ad is recommended for anyone wishing to seep in the Irish psyche. Tis linked above. Go on, indulge yourself.

Now, granted, there didn’t seem to be much point to this ad; the ESB had no rivals back then to advertise against, so the only purpose the ad served was to make you want all the posh gizmos in Alan’s Mammy’s kitchen (ooh, electric blanket!). I don’t know if it led to a nationwide spending spree by blue-rinsers moist at the thought of shiny new immersions switches; I was only about four when I first saw this ad and I’d no notion you could ever move out from home (my elder siblings were still tucked away in box rooms, sometimes with new spouses in tow). So whether the ad’s power directly benefitted our national power supply, I’m not sure. More importantly, it doesn’t matter. This is the Christmas feeling to end all Christmas feelings. This is why we love The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl. The Irish are drawn to the poignant like moths to Stephen Fry’s head.

Now. It being Friday, and you lot probably having a shed-load of Christmas shopping to do over the weekend, I can’t end this blog post on a sour note, as I’d planned to. So instead, I’ll leave it til Monday to follow up with the five worst Christmas ads, and we shall have the grinchy fun and frolics. Oh yes!

Have a good weekend. I love you all!

How could you not want a bit of that?

Tonight is new host Ryan Tubridy’s first hop at this most glorious of traditional shindigs, and I have to say that I have no doubt he’ll take to it like a duck-faced coathanger to a life of culture and entitlement. In other words, I may not like Tubbers much, but he’s a professional and he’s going to ace this gig. Former host Pat Kenny looked like an undercover hedge when he tried to “do” the Toy Show; considering that Murphy’s Law is the Toy Show’s 1st commandment, the likes of Pat The Plank was always going to suffer like a tin bowl of porridge in a microwave. And let’s be honest; the Toy Show hasn’t been great in recent years. It’s up to Ry-Tub to bring it back, and in nothing less than a blaze of glory, too.

When I was a smallie, my favourite thing about the Toy Show was the Billie Barry Kids, a group of stage-school flamboyants whom I would no doubt drown in a bucket if I was subjected to them as an adult. The turning point for me – by which I mean from when I found the Toy Show awesome to finding it stuck to my metaphorical shoe like common cat vomit – coincided with the point they stopped using the Billie Barry Kids and started using the Billie Barry Babies, who were all insufferably cute and sang Barney songs and sounded like newborn kittens falling into nests of newborn alligators. And of course, there was Pat Kenny, and … yeah, mostly it was Pat Kenny. The Toy Show, which you are entitled to enjoy right into your dotage (and something I’d give my left lung to attend), started to disappoint me. I think I even missed it last year. But then, just because it’s supposed to be fun, doesn’t mean it’s not capable of disappointment. So without further ado, here’s …

Sweary’s Top 10 Most Disappointing Toys Ever!

10: Playsets of Any Fucking Description Apart From Maybe Sindy’s Dream Room Which Was Awesome.

You think you’re getting a world as big as your imagination, which has its own gravitational pull and room for a winged ninja unicorn. Instead you get a bi-folding piece of plastic an inch deep with two floors and no stairs, and it won’t stand upright on your bedroom floor carpet, and your action figure gets stuck in the ultra-secret trapdoor, and the “accessories” are only painted on.

9. Make-Up Just Like Mam’s.

Except it’s not just like Mam’s. It’s either actual moulded plastic, or it melts your eyelids you when you try to Alexis-Carrington-yourself up a bit. Either way it’s not very glamorous. I blame Catholic Ireland and its prejudice against hussies.

8: Tamagotchis.

The virtual pet that purported to be easier to look after than a real pet, with less dire consequences in the event of a childish lapse in concentration. In reality it shat all over its screen if you left it alone for the odd real-life toilet break. If you dared fall asleep, it died. A generation developed OCD and twitches in unusual places.

7: Furbys

I rather agonised about whether or not it was wise to include an evocative picture here, you know. Furbys are just that fucking annoying. So here’s a dead one instead. The gibbering, ever-conscious, creepy little cuntball.

6: Paper Dolls.

I got a lot of paper dolls as a child, because I liked fashion and was too poor to afford any. Fashion made out of paper isn’t all that clever, though. No matter how careful you were, you’d slice through the bendy bits that were all that stood between your doll’s garden party glamour and her arrest for indecent exposure. Also, the shoes kept flipping up like a hoop skirt. Sure Pritt was your only man, and that defeated the purpose entirely.

5: Sea Monkeys

Disgusting. Jesus, keeping brine shrimp on your dressing table and pretending they were elements of a sophisticated mini-society? They floated, for fuck’s sake! That’s all they did! Plus, they looked like something out of The Thing, except Things that were content to just float passively … oh, Jesus, they were just SHIT.

4: Barbie’s Pony …

Coz it was no fucking horse, let me tell you. Not to be an equine Nazi, but Barbie is at least seven feet tall, comparatively speaking. She should be atop nothing smaller than a Brontosaurus. Her legs, therefore, didn’t fit in the ugly would-be stirrups and she kept sliding off to one side like the town of Fermoy. Also, why was it that so many of Barbie’s geegees had one leg constantly raised in a state of extreme imbalance, like Megan Fox in that movie? These are noble beasts, you bitch!

3: Plastic Slinkies.

Like metal slinkies, but actually stocked in rural Irish shops. Unlike metal slinkies, because they stopped on the second step of the stairs, got wound up in your da’s runners, and warped like a fucking Star Trek getaway within ten minutes of your bringing them home. On top of that, they always developed weird little black dirt spots. Perhaps because THEY WERE POXY.

2: Mr. Frosty

How I wanted a Mr. Frosty! How I longed for my very own slushee-making production facility from where I could experiment with Wonka-type flavours with the inhibitions of a figure-skating Heathcliff. When I eventually got my hands on one, the resulting concoctions tasted like a windscreen. I’m being kind.

And, the most disappointing toy of all?

1: Robin Williams’ “Toys”.

I mean what the fuck was that all about? The fuck. What. The Fuck. What? WHAT?

Do plaster your own opinions liberally below. I demand a themed day in preparation for The Toy Show. That, and two bottles of cheap Shiraz and some Cuisine De France mince pies.

Aries (Mar 21 – Apr 19)

The term ‘Office Romance’ is redefined when a janitor discovers you having sex with a photocopier. A perfect storm of paper jam and simultaneous penis jam scuppers your plan for a quick getaway. Though collaterally-damaged pubes (shorn by the fire brigade’s angle grinding equipment) regrow in weeks, slower to recover is your esteem among colleagues.

Taurus (Apr 20 – May 20)

A piano fallen from an overhead crane lands squarely on your skull this weekend, killing you instantly and wounding a nearby pigeon. A BBC4 documentary entitled ‘On a Wing and a Prayer’ charts the pigeon’s recovery in a veterinary hospital just outside Suffolk.

Gemini (May 21 – Jun 21)

Honesty is always the best policy. Your casual white lie about ownership of a sandwich snowballs, resulting in the deaths of millions. Adding insult to injury, the sandwich is dry and lettucey.

Cancer (Jun 22 – Jul 22)

Your attempt to tightrope walk between the roofs of the Petronas Towers passes off without a hitch. Unfortunately, the Malaysian legal system takes a poor view on public displays of tightrope walking. A maximum fine of 200 Malaysian Ringgits (approx. 40 euro) is imposed, along with a beheading.

Leo (Jul 23 – Aug 22)

An unseasonal, flash tornado ravages your house in seconds this week. Carrying your dead wife from the rubble, you fall to your knees and curse the gods. Piqued by your blaspheming, the gods send an even bigger tornado back for your kids.

Virgo (Aug 23 – Sep 22)

You have a terrific sense of humour, which you’ll need when a clown kidnaps you later this week and chains you in his basement. Though his nightly performances are amusing for the first couple of weeks, twenty-six years of the same tired jokes eventually wear thin.

Libra (Sep 23 – Oct 23)

Love is in the air this week. So too is Anthrax. You’ll taste both, but only be killed by one.

Scorpio (Oct 24 – Nov 21)

Spectral ghosts from the past, present and future visit this weekend. Your initial suspicion that they intend steering you back unto the path of righteousness quickly dissolves when they hold you down and bugger you to within an inch of your life.

Sagittarius (Nov 22 – Dec 21)

Though your work as a geneticist is praiseworthy, your attempt to reintroduce the T-Rex into Ireland backfires when you become the first T-Rex fatality in 65 million years. Reflecting on your death, naturalists describe your Steve Irwin approach of poking and prodding the adult Rexes as having been ‘a ticking time bomb’.

Capricorn (Dec 22 – Jan 19)

Your dream of playing snooker professionally suffers another setback this week when both your arms are amputated. The media initially commends your bravery in relearning to play with your feet, but when Ronnie O’Sullivan crushes you 19 frames to 0 in a charity exhibition match for amputees, reviews of your performance are scathing.

Aquarius (Jan 20 – Feb 18)

A mysterious stranger beats lumps out of you this weekend, in a case of mistaken identity. When a second stranger beats lumps out of you a few days later, you decide to locate the person you are repeatedly being misidentified as. Unfortunately, having tracked him down, he deals you a beating so severe it makes the previous two seem mild by comparison.

Pisces (Feb 19 – Mar 20)

Your temper flares this week, when you learn that you are a patchwork of stolen corpses, reanimated by a mad scientist harnessing the lightening of a violent storm. A petulant, ill-advised rampage through a nearby village only alienates the locals, ending your resurgent life in a flurry of pitch-forking.

Customer: “Hello what time is the latest we can get a table for a dinner?”

Me: “Eh…..” panic sets in “…it depends on which day and how many it’s for.”

If the punter wants a late booking on a day I’m not working then he can get what he wants. There’s more honour amongst thieves than waiters.

If not, we move onto to the next question…

Me again: “What time would you want a table for?”

I need the punter to specify a time, that then becomes the negotiation point. If he hits me back with the first question then I’m fucked. You see my concern is that I don’t know who is on the phone. They might be the bosses next door neighbour, or his cousin or somebody that could land me in a whole pile of dog mess if I get found out for spoofing the last order time.

No matter what the punter says I will tell them a half hour before the actual last order time. If they get lippy I make up a fantastic but very plausible reason, normally something to do with other bookings.

You might find this hard to believe but waiters don’t always tell you the truth. I’ll give you a moment to deal with that shocking revelation. But even when we tell the truth we may mean something else entirely, and those seemingly harmless questions, if only you knew…

“Hi table for two is it?” – there had better not be any more of you.

“Would you like to see the menu before you take a table?” – yes, I know where the nearest Pizza Hut is

“Oh the house red sir, great choice!” – cheap wine, cheap tip

“So you’re Australian?” – bye bye, you wont be seeing me again

“Yes madam all our beef is local.” – if you live in Buenos Aries

“Sir you are just so funny, I’m gonna use that.” – Kill me now/you’re getting blogged tonight

“Your Canadian eh?” – This is our kitchen porter he’ll be serving you tonight

“Have you had the XXXXX before?” – DON’T BLOODY ORDER IT (we cant just come out and say it’s crap so we ask if you have had it before. If you have then you know and I am absolved of all guilt)

“Well Hi, you guys must be American?” – K-ching!

“Yes sir, kids are welcome.” – as long as you are 60 and your kids are 20/welcome to go to granny’s/not in my section

“My! Don’t you all just look great!” – it’s 6 days from pay day and I’m skint!

“No change sir? That’s okay you can get me next time.” – next time? Don’t make me laugh. You and I wont be doing this again any time soon.

“Brown sauce madam? I’ll see if we have any left” – I’m away for a walk, a cup of coffee, a quick chat with the chefs about the match last night and inevitably returning without any brown sauce.

“Cook it a bit more? I’m sure the chef would be delighted to sir” – and rub it on the floor a few times too I’m sure.

Read between the lines folks, the waiter speaks with forked tongue.

They’re soft, they’re bouncy, and half the world has a pair; it’s very difficult not to be a fan of teh boobage, let’s face it. Even if you don’t find them sexually appealing, even if you don’t want National Geographic or Secrets Lapdancing Club banging the bongos of others in your face all day, even if your body image is such that you’re repulsed by your own pair of oompha boomphas (which you keep hidden under a thermal vest and only bring out under Radox) … you’ve got to admit they serve a practical purpose. They feed babies, fill out Christmas dresses, and their fleshy folds serve as purses for those of us too vegetarian to carry our money in wallets made of dead Italian cow. If they’re huge, you can use them as battering rams during hostage situations; if they’re small, you can waft about braless and become a muse for an artistic, rich pervert. Boobs are wonderful.

But with great cleavage comes great responsibility. There are some ribcages that deserve not the gentle bob of a pair of breasts teasing gravity. No matter how comforting, how erotic, or how practical a decent pair of bajongas, there are some things you just can’t curve.

Like cartoon animals. Cartoon animals, outside of the weirdy world inhabited by the furry community, should not sport breasts.

Other nipply appendages,  I understand. If you’re looking to create an anatomically-correct moo-cow or some other such mammal, you’ll probably have to add those glands that makes them mammal. Cartoon animals are rarely anatomically correct, though. They can be bipedal, and very chatty, so in general the po-faced biology sketches are best left to the textbooks and out of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series (can you imagine how appealing said heroes would have been had they actually looked like turtles? As appealing as Brian Cowen in a body stocking, I’d imagine). What I mean to say is, I don’t have a problem with bipedal, talking cartoon animals, or even those that have the imaginary audacity to wear jumpers or carry briefcases. We all like a bit of escapism, and sometimes you really need escapism, like when a blogger gives you mental images of Brian Cowen in a body stocking.

This, though. There’s escapism, and then there’s … this.

What the fuck is this?

That, me dears, is the Cadbury’s Caramel bunny after an apparent run-in with her very disillusioned agent.

“Listen, sugar … er … ears, Watership Down is out, you tiresome lapine stodgebucket! Get thee some inexplicable honkers and we’ll talk, coz at the moment you’re only a pest in the vegetable garden of the nation’s fucking pants, ok?”

Or something equally crazed. I don’t know why the Caramel Bunny has had so much work done. I don’t remember ordering a Furry version of Samantha from Sex In The City. I cannot comprehend why a rabbit needs mascara, or a trout pout, or a dazed, come-to-warren, pornalike expression in her deadened, deadened eyes … Holy Chist, Cadbury’s! This isn’t the essence of that “Still Got It” adage! This is a crime against pencil-shaded nature, this is!

It’s not just the Caramel Bunny, either (although she is the only one to have a dress designed for her by Giles Deacon). There’s the homely, child-bearing hips of the animums in the Air Wick ads … Christ, Caramel Bunny isn’t even the first! I recall wondering, back in my 80’s childhood, why Melissa Raccoon wore a top covering obvious boobies when she was naked from the waist down.

I mean, c’mon, lads. Coochie-less hooters? What? WHAT?

I don’t know. Perhaps I’m being a little pedantic about the whole legitimate placement of baps … After all, if they can stick them on Victoria Beckham they can stick them anywhere. It just makes my brain trickle, looking at a foxy rabbit. Edible herbivores shouldn’t contribute to an international problem with body image!

What do you think, dear readers? Rampant rabtits a go-go, or should kissy lips remain on friendly strippers and some species of tropical fish?

Have a great weekend either way.

Now look again.

Yes. He is cool and sophisticated because he is smoking a cigarette.

An Esample to Us All

Sadly, this sight is being becoming increasingly rare in Spain. Gone are the day when a young boy is undergo that most manly rite of passage, sitting on his father’s knee and lighting up his first cigarette, his other hand around his sippy cup of brandy. And so too will disappear the filthy cancer-riddle shoeless ragamuffin from the ancient streets of lovely pissing Dublin if the faceless and nameless bureaucrats (especially Simon O’Farrell of Dundalk) in the Customs and Exercise Office have their way. Only last week, I see, these nincompetents are manage to intercept a perfectly innocent ship carrying 140 billion free cigarettes destined for the nation’s kids, enough to keep them in nicotine for an entire weekend, by my rough calculation. Officers mount on board and arrest the sailors, who they later release, by the way, but confiscate all the cigarettes which they then smoke craftily in the staff room at lunchtime: The newspaper is report that the brands of fags stolen were named Palace, Chelsea, United, Arsenal and Scunthorpe, the last of which is specially popular with adolescent schoolboys.

In addition to this downclamping, the Irish government has also bought an X-ray machine from China to examine any other cigarette shipments.   The machine has cost €1.48 million and will probably arrive from China on the same ship as more smuggled cigarettes. I am not entirely sure what the Customs and Exercise are especting to find inside the cigarettes besides tobacco, mind you. Cigarettes are, notoriously, thin and narrow objects and made with paper, so why the government is going to so much trouble to scan them with X-rays when they can just smoke them is beyond me. Their time, surely, would be better spent X-raying cigars, which are at least a bit fatter;  you might possibly be able to smuggle an esotic animal inside, such as a chihuahua, a parakeet, a gomby, or a slut. An X-ray machine, frankly, is strike me as a waist of taxpayers’ money, especially at a time like this when the Department of Finance is complaining about not having enough money. I only hope they remember to collect the import tax on the X-ray machine, but I don’t have high holpes.   Instead, the idiot TDs are focusing on the fact that the fine for dealing in contraband cigarettes is a “mere” €423, as if smokers have any more money to spend on fags with the ridiculously high duty already put on them. THAT is the real crime in all this.  No wonder people resort to smuggling.

Once upon a time, smoking the cigarettes was play an important social role among people, a way of bonding them to one another when they are complete strangers. “Hello, pretty niña,” you could say to any little girl on a Madrid street corner, “Do you have any cigarettes on you? I’m gasping, as you can tell by my heavy breath.” Similarly, the urchin in the picture above would have been able, once upon a time, to break down the generation gap with his elders, mitching a fag off his father or his grandfather, if they were still alive. Now, however, he is reduce to surreptitiously rooting through his father’s pockets for change because he cannot get together enough money of his own through begging, gambling, or pimping to buy estortionately priced cigarettes. This sad state of affairs breeds mistrust between parents and children, doctors and nurses, police and thieves, Flanagan and Allen, with the result that children are now have to get their cigarettes in illicit tab houses, where it is entirely possible that the cigarettes have been tampered with or “cut” with unknown ingredients such as cannabis, Oxo, or dog poo. They don’t know what they are smurking in such places. Each time they are put a tab to their lips, is like Russian roulette without the gun or the bullet.

Children will not stop smoking ever, of course, because cigarettes are a naturally occurring vitamin that the body needs and which it will crave if it is not getting it regularly, a bit like absolution.  Of course, by keeping cigarette smuggling illegal, idiot politicians are only adding to the glamour of the Geordie tab house and also making it more difficult to either control or tax the smugglers.  How unfortunate, you might say to yourself, if you are a naive moron, but the reality is that they do it deliberately, with Alice Aforethought; their goal is to undermine our traditional indigent Spanish culture as part of their plan to construct the bland, culture-free, pan-European bureaucratic superstate so desired by our Illuminati rulers in their quest for total control over all our lives. If the Eurocrats have their way, we will we all be on our knees before them, sucking the feeble juice from their Euro-regulation carrots, instead of proudly lying in our hospital beds smoking life-enhancing fags.

So, remember, every time you cough up brown or yellow phlegm, you are sticking it to the Illuminati.   And ignore the lies of the bed-wetting liberal nanny superstate lackeys when they say that smoking is bad for you. Is total rubbish.  Smoke will do you no harm at all.  It isn’t even a solid!

I think.