Dermott Hayes's Blog: Postcard from a Pigeon, page 65
June 23, 2016
Playing Snooker with a Rope
This was posted on my other blog, https://ironinmyblood.com, which deals with haemochromatosis, a condition of having an iron overload in the blood but it’s relevant to give it a wider audience
That headline is just one of a lengthy list of euphemisms in the Sicktionary, an online source of ways to laugh at the limp and the lonely (http://sicktionary.usvsth3m.com/topic/erectile-dysfunction/).
It is a euphemism for erectile dysfunction, a sexual ailment that describes the male body’s inability to maintain an erection during sexual activity. Hence, playing snooker with a rope, limp noodle, floppy jalopy, pink puncture, Mary Celeste, brewers’ droop. Good, now we’ve got that out of the way, you can stop sniggering in the back, sit up and pay attention.
Erectile dysfunction (ED) is a common ailment for males in the their late 40s or over 50. In Ireland, it is estimated more than 50% of the male population experience it.(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erectile_dysfunction) For people like me, with haemochromatosis, an iron overload in my blood, it is a symptom.
Men might not mind sharing a joke about it but they don’t want to…
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Macha Tea ‘n’ Fruit Break
There is method in this indulgent madness. The biscuits are a dry, sugar free bread with almonds. The pith of fresh pineapple has strong anti-inflammatory powers while the macha tea is a powerful antioxidant and the cherries, well, they’re gorgeous
Living in and on Hope but Little Else
Amendments proposed by AAA/People Before Profit to Fianna Fail’s wishy washy motion on the arts are to be voted on in Dail Eireann today at 12.45. The amendments, proposed yesterday by Richard Boyd Barret, amount to a revolution in the way arts and artists are treated in Ireland, opening a way to a creative society in which […]
via Dail vote on NEW DEAL FOR THE ARTS today — The Bogman’s Cannon
Housebound
Having been given strict instructions to stay off my foot for as long as possible – to give the cortisone time to tackle the crystals accumulated in my ankle joint – I decided to make a quick shopping trip, to buy some lunch.
It’s a warm day but, it being Ireland, there’s sunshine, now clouds, now sunshine, what was that? I felt that, was that rain, no, here’s the sun again.
Shopping was fun. Everyone’s flying tricolours and talking about the match. It’s not every day an Irish football team advances to the knock out stages of a big tournament. The Irish supporters in France have been dubbed the greatest supporters in the world, because wherever they go, the drink, they sing, they help out.
So far, they’ve been recorded singing a lullaby for a baby on the metro, singing ‘Dancing Queen’ with Swedish fans, changing a flat tire for an elderly couple in the streets of Bordeaux and even repairing a dent in the roof of another person’s car. They’ve serenaded the French police in Marseilles and Paris and generally, spread the happiness, wherever they’ve gone.
So I wish I was out there with them. But I can’t. So I’m back at my apartment, plotting the next episode of Starman in my head, while listening to The Foundations sing, ‘Baby, Now that I’ve Found You’ and writing this. But then there was lunch and what the hell, I’m going to barbecue because I bought a seabass.
June 22, 2016
My Left Foot – GOYBIG
In case you’re wondering, GOYBIG is an acronym for Go On You Boys In Green, chanting slogan for the Republic of Ireland’s football team who made Irish football history last night and beat Italy to put us through to the final 16 in the European Championship.
As if that weren’t enough and on the eve of a British referendum that could determine the history of these countries for the foreseeable future, four of the 16 teams qualified for the final round are from the British Isles and Ireland; the Republic of Ireland, Wales, Northern Ireland and England.
As for My Left Foot, well, I underwent the latest in what has been a six month saga, although, if the truth were told, it’s the latest in 18 months of constant pain. I went for an appointment in the Digital Imaging department of the Mater Hospital. I went there by bus, with my walking stick. Not holding out for a lot but this time was different from the last attempt, which failed.
The process today was a laser image guided injection of cortisone into the joint of my left ankle. Into the joint, remember, that means between the two ankle bones and right into the joint where, because of the iron overload condition which I have, crystals accumulate that cause severe inflammation and pain.
“It will hurt,’ the professor of rheumatology told me, before she made my appointment. Pain, I thought, with two artificial hips and arthritis in every joint, already, ‘I spit in the eye of pain.’
Well, what a load of bollocks. Dante could add a new wheel to his Inferno and call it ‘digital imaging injection.’Sweet Mother of Jesus” or, SMOJ, as I like to say, this was pain turned up to a demonic level where ’11’ is for pussies and ’20’ is a fond memory. And it happened, not once but four times and all the time reaching new levels way, way beyond the threshold of public immolation or getting a cold wax Brazilian.
It took a mere ten minutes in all to reduce me to a quivering wimp and that’s before they asked me to step off the table and get out. Well, they were a little more gentle and polite about it but, believe me, those were not concepts with which I could compute, right then.
They put me in a wheelchair and I got dressed. It took another ten minutes for the asnaesthetic to kick in and then I could walk again, assisted by my walking stick. I made a beeline for the nearest pub, W.G. Kavanagh’s of Dorset St and sat down, ordered a pint, hissed a sigh of relief and then couldn’t decide whether to cry or get drunk.
In the end, I decided on neither and took my sorry ass home, mindful of the radiologist’s warning to refrain from putting on the Ritz, a la Fred, or Riverdancing, a la Flatley but I had bigger things on my mind. Ireland were in the last ditch saloon, waiting for a chance, a slim chance to beat the Italians and make it to the final 16.
Halfway through the game, or near the half time mark, an Italian defender charged into the back of McClean, an Irish forward, on the ball and the goal ahead of him beckoning. In any other competition, according to the rules of the game, this player should have been penalised and sent off and a penalty awarded to Ireland. No such thing.
It was around then I decided if the injection doesn’t work, I will saw my leg off – no use to me, now – and carry it to France or the home of that referee, to club him to death with it.
But all was not lost and a combination of an army of Irish supporters who are the darlings of Europe and the soul and spirit of this team and a bunch of players who simply refused to give up, we won. We Won, for fuck’s sake.
And in the next game, Sunday, we play France who denied us a chance to play in the World Cup when he handled the ball into the Irish net in a World Cup playoff. Sweet karma, you can be a ragged bitch, but the French must be cowering, now.
And, in the end, I did dance, one legged, but I danced.
June 21, 2016
Signs of the Time #8
In this day and age, intelligent BRANDING is essential. So I picked out a few who’ve gone the extra mile. Our first one is the REAL name of a firm of lawyers.
and, as they say, Is it me you’re looking floor?
or, if you’re holding out for a tiler, we’ve got what you need…
Need a knocker…
or a firewall…
and if, after all that, you’re feeling, er, peckish…
Karma Chameleon
Police in Turkey blast pride parade with water cannons, ‘accidentally create rainbow’
‘Police reacts with water cannons. Karma reacts with rainbow.’
Christopher Hooton
@christophhooton
Monday 29 June 2015
7 comments
A crowd-dispersing method turned into an unwitting symbol of defiance, if this photo is to be believed, in Taksim Square, Turkey yesterday, where the annual gay pride parade was being held.
Turkish police used water cannon trucks and rubber pellets on those gathered in the centre of Istanbul, despite the parade having taken place peacefully the year before.
Attendees were injured by the cannons, according to Hurriyet Daily, though amongst the disruption one onlooker took a photo that purportedly showed one of the jets creating a rainbow in the sunlight.
We couldn’t verify the image, which it is possible has been Photoshopped, but it is being widely shared in Turkey nonetheless (being viewed over 1.5 million times worldwide), reflecting the colours of Pride amid the chaos.
The Only thing Certain, is Uncertainty
GENE KERRIGAN, writing in the Irish Sunday Independent, is a rare thing in these days of journalists who are simply, stenographers to the powerful (https://www.facebook.com/newsPeeks/). In his latest, weekly opinion piece, he demonstrates he has his hand on the pulse of a nation and his eye on the horizon
The only thing certain is uncertainty
We’ve reason to be jittery, as Trump, bin charges and Brexit threaten to rock the boat, writes Gene Kerrigan
Gene Kerrigan Twitter
Published 19/06/2016 | 02:30
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1The fabulous riches appropriated by the 1pc are not the result of some victim-free development (Illustration by Tom Halliday)
You can smell the panic: from Washington to Downing Street, from Strasburg to Leinster House. Things are not going according to plan.
A year ago, Donald Trump began his run at the US presidency and the people who explain the world to the rest of us smirked. He was a joke candidate, they said, who’d be quickly demolished by the Washington professionals.
They also knew that American support for a blatant left-winger such as Bernie Sanders would be embarrassingly small.
Likewise, the people who explain things to the rest of us had no doubt about the fate of the campaign to take the UK out of the EU. It would dribble to an ignominious halt as common sense kicked in.
Here, in this great little nation, the people who explain things to the rest of us said the water charge protest had run out of steam. Fine Gael and Labour, they said, were perfectly positioned to reap the political rewards of “the recovery”.
A year later, and we’re now in a period in which many of the old certainties are suddenly very shaky. The world as we’ve known it might well change drastically over the next few months.
One or two of her many skeletons might fall out of Hillary Clinton’s closet. In which case, we’ll have to send the genealogists into the archives to find a distant Irish relative of President Trump.
At the same time, the Bernie Sanders campaign has shown that there’s a significant American thirst for politics outside the old Punch and Judy show.
On this side of the Atlantic, if the polls are right there’s a reasonable chance the UK will vote to quit the EU. Not because of the fiercely anti-democratic nature of the right wing bankers who control the ECB, but because of colonial nostalgia and a Daily Express-type dislike of foreigners.
Meanwhile, across Europe, the extreme right is gaining ground. The sleazy right in the political parties and in the media have for years used the old anti-immigrant chatter to solidify support. They encouraged the kind of cheesy nationalism that gets people killed. In the murder of Jo Cox, the trivial concerns of shallow people have had tragic consequences.
The EU sets the moral tone for all this by bribing some pretty foul politicians to corral vulnerable refugees within Turkish borders.
If the UK leaves, the solidity of the European project will be put in question. Boris Johnson might become PM as a belittled Cameron is sent packing. Scotland will probably demand another independence referendum, this time voting Yes.
A UK dominated by Little Englanders will get to boss around Wales and Northern Ireland, which will be fun to watch but hell to live through.
It will be a UK in the grip of a bitter, vengeful and gloatingly small-minded Tory regime. The privatisation of the NHS will surge ahead and a cowering BBC will be demolished.
Both parts of this island would probably be hit hard economically. Certainly there’d be a political hit.
Of course, none of these things might happen.
Or, they might all happen but it won’t matter because President Trump will celebrate his inauguration next January 20 by nuking Mexico.
As share prices soar in the nuclear fallout shelter business, and everyone’s wondering where Trump will nuke next, the Israelis will take the ball on the hop and nuke the Palestinians.
Never one to miss an opportunity to show his muscles, a bare-chested Vladimir Putin will appear on TV to announce that if Russia isn’t belatedly declared winner of the Eurovision song contest he’ll nuke Johnny Logan.
Meanwhile, this great little nation shares the sense of instability. The 2011 election crippled FF. The 2016 election crippled FG, cut Labour to pieces and destroyed Renua.
The ruling coalition, Fianna Gael, is in danger from soaring bin charges – the inevitable consequence of privatisation. Worried Government ministers are frantic to kill the controversy. Simon Coveney may yet promise to personally go from door to door, emptying our bins into the boot of his state car, if it will stop us protesting.
Why is the instability so widespread? And what have the proto-fascist Trump and the anti-immigrant Brexit campaigns, not to mention the Sanders surge, to do with our government’s jittery response to the threatened rise in bin charges?
Let me take a wild guess, here: Would almost 30 years of free market extremism, followed by almost a decade of austerity for the many, and staggering growth in wealth for the few, maybe have anything to do with the instability?
The fabulous riches appropriated by the 1pc are not the result of some victim-free development. Over recent decades, there has been a reduction in the share of income going to labour. Job conditions deteriorate; the middle class see their opportunities shrinking.
The apologists for the 1pc say it doesn’t matter how the cake is shared, as long as the cake is ever-bigger,
You could get away with that during a boom, even a bubble, but year after year of austerity exposed the lie. The queue at the soup kitchen is almost as long as the queue for five-grand handbags.
In the USA, decades of low wages, people working two and three part-time jobs to survive, bred resentment. This opened many to the social democratic arguments by the likes of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. It also opened the door to those many Americans longing to worship the Putinesque strong-man image Trump promotes.
The European Central Bank and the EU elite had reached a stage where they didn’t feel the need to hide their blatantly anti-democratic behaviour. They staged a coup in Greece and displaced an elected leader in Italy, they ordered the re-running of the Nice and Lisbon referendums when Irish voters didn’t give them the result they wanted. This undermined the legitimacy of the EU.
And played into the hands of the Little Englanders.
Now, we have a housing crisis, thousands of children homeless – and the politicians are locked into a “solution” that won’t work. They beg “the market” to provide shelter. The market demands ever-bigger profits.
They induced us to vote through the Fiscal Compact in 2012. They did this not by explaining what it was about, but with dodgy slogans telling us it would “secure Ireland’s future” and allow us “stay at the heart of Europe”.
Now, we urgently need municipal housing, they tell us the Fiscal Compact says we can’t spend the money, so we must seek an “off-balance sheet” solution.
We needed politicians who would defend democracy; we had Enda Kenny and Michael Noonan, who believe in kissing the asses of the powerful. We needed to defend our interests, we had FF and Labour telling us to leave it to them.
The blatant lies and the repeated short-changing aroused the water tax protests; we’re reacting against getting the bill for the years of right-wing free market extremism.
And if you liked water charges, you’ll love ever-rising bin charges.
Sunday Independent
Authors beware: A new danger for KU authors
Stop, thief!
Darrienia: The Forgotten Legacies Series
Hi all,
Anyone who follows me closely will know my book was removed from Amazon for almost a fortnight after they registered some unusual activity. At first I was at a loss. What was it, where had it come from? But since I have learnt a terrifying truth behind Kindle Unlimited, it is one all authors need to be aware of. It is a KU scam that could ruin your career and put your money into fraudsters’ pockets.
In this post I will detail my own experience, in hope you know what to look out for.
I was running a book promotion, a push to generate interest in my first book. After approaching blogs and book promotion sites I began to run a 99cents promotion on Darrienia, which at that time was number one in two of its categories. Book two is coming out at the end of the year…
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Day Forty – Bitch Please – Short Story
Day 39 in Mathew Tonks’ epic short story journey
“That’s it, that’s my catchphrase,” he says as he looks down on her naked, sweaty body, as he grips her breasts and continues to thrust into her.
“Bitch please, is not a cat-catchat… Oh god I’m cumming, harder, fuck me harder!” She yells, he thrusts back and forth quicker and harder as she screams in ecstasy, he feels a gush of warm fluid splash over his groin and he too lets loose, burying himself deep as he reaches orgasm, and then collapses beside her, sweat running off them both, for a few moments they lie there, both trying to catch their breath.
She pushes him off her and grabs a cigarette from a packet on the bedside table and lights it up, taking a long, deep drag.
“Bitch please is so not your catchphrase Sammy,” she says as she hands him the cigarette.
“What? Why not?” He asks taking a…
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Postcard from a Pigeon
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