Careful Now

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Mercifully Short

Forgive me if I begin to sound like a self-aggrandising, incumbent president, but I have excellent concentration. I can happily put my phone away for hours at a time, breeze through some meditation, listen intently, read continuously without moving, or drive forward into my work without the urge to chat or browse the internet. Concentration is something I am good at. People say I'm the greatest at concentration. I've all the best concentration. However, last week, when I finally managed to sit down and start watching Stranger Things (season 1, for the first time), I found myself reaching for my phone on more than one occasion, without any prompting from the device itself. One episode and 15 minutes in, I turned it off, never to set eyes on it again. My review: it's boring — a boring and pointless show.

Someone thought this was a clever idea.

I saw everything they were trying to affect: the nostalgia grab (which was as sentimental as the faux antique realia that sometimes decorates pubs); the forced, tiresome allusions to E.T., The Goonies, and Stand by Me; the young facsimile 1980s movie stars; the eighties movie darling cameo; the suburban setting; the props and the decor. It seems to me that a calculated piece of craftsmanship such as this was green-lit by a committee of producers, who cynically pursue means of bottling your memories and feelings of childhood excitement so they can sell them back to you. Consume through television serials and films the feelings you felt while you consumed television serials and films long ago. All I felt was how pointless watching endless hours of meaningless stories was then and still is. Thankfully, they are mercifully shorter than before, but one cannot help wonder if that is born from better taste or the inviability of being the prime distraction for so many hours. Who has time for all this? All these hours in front of the TV? There are TV shows that discuss episodes of Stranger Things with the gravity of something real or important. There are Youtube channels that review it in great banality. There are blog posts and probably — God forgive us — boring academic papers of no value harping on about its cultural significance, and disclosing predictable observations about how nostalgia stems from a fear of the future or death or something else as boring and commonplace as those things. Jesus Christ, it's only a bit of dread about death.

What curiosity stirs within so many people for such stories? How do they become invested in such foregttable characters? Just look, for example, at the current Star Wars trilogy. Who cares about Po Damaran or Finn or Captain Phasma? "I can't wait to ride along on their fascinating story arc", said some dullard oblivious to the idea that it is a film series that is trying to replicate another film series. People scream at the film's trailers, which are comparable to advertisements for supermarket level products. The current run of films will all eventually get lost in many series of trilogies and solo films, where characters will continually get killed off and batons will be passed down. So many batons and so much death. Like existence itself, it is a stream of waste that never ends.

Where to next then? There's no easy answer, and it's hard to think with all the noise that is the entertainment industry. My advice? Just part ways with your fear about death and loss, and everything will be fine. You can let go and avoid putting yourself through another Netflix original show. Or, you know, just do the opposite. Enjoy it, if that's your thing, I suppose. But it's boring. Admit it, it's boring!

Or at least as boring as this video of Gwendoline Christie talking about playing Captain Phasma:

Who Saves Time by Daylight Saving Time?

And so, winter has officially come to visit us again. Its dark reign ascends until the new year, whence its icy grip will slowly loosen. The sun-god Re will make progressively less impressive treks across our sky until his paltry appearances will not bring awe to even the most impressionable. Like everything else in nature, it is not something that cannot be made worse by human artifice. I speak now, explicitly, of daylight saving time (or daylight's savings's time as we say here in Ireland). We feign control over time every six months by moving the hands of our chronometers back or forth. It is a concept utterly bereft of logic and utility. I once spent twenty bemused minutes trying to explain it to a Korean colleague, who may well have thought me a liar or an idiot. 

Resistance is futile. 

We have all heard the stories of why daylight saving exists: the farmer needed the extra hour with his sons before school in the morning to ensure he could get all the work done before sundown (or some such variation of this idea). Aside from daylight saving being redundant now, in this time of hydroponics, flood lights, and advanced farming machinery, it has allowed the greatest scourge ever to visit mankind to endure for millennia: farming itself. Yes, dear reader, I attest to the inescapable reality that farming has held us back, leading us away from the righteous paleo diet we were always supposed to have. The ultra-ancient wisdom of our pre-historic ancestors has been lost. Were they able to transmit their insights into the future in a more reliable form than the primordial grunts they used as language, they would have undoubtedly educated us on the value of ketosis, foraging, and the many ills of dairy and gluten. Instead, their beautiful knowledge and lifestyle were paved over by the mammoth terror we now call agriculture. 

Like a plague of organised, productive locusts, agrarian societies supplanted the bounty of nature with the toilsome utilitarianism of farming. These harbingers of obesity and diabetes poisoned humanity with wheat, barley, and animal produce. How many barely discernible, minor allergies and intolerances do we have to witness to acknowledge that farming is a curse? And what has farming actually brought us? Obesity? Societies crammed with far too many bodies? How many fat people filing up crowded places do we need to experience before we realise that foraging for nuts and berries is the pinnacle of humanity? We can no longer afford to deny our very particular dietary needs. I say that if you wish to uncover the roots of our dystopia, look no further than the roots of our dyspepsia. Throwing shit we gather from animals asses unto the tossed and turned soil has produced the results you would expect from such activities. Prior to the Neolithic Revolution, we stood over 190cm tall and usually lived for over a century. Now we look shrivelled and pale in comparison, unable to breeze through daily ultra-marathons like our pre-historic ancestors did. 

The darkness descends once more and we believe we can mitigate it with artifice. We need, as humans, to put down the foolish slice of bread and the bowl of rice hubris. Nature stands immutable; in the power scheme, we are not the ones in control. Only when we accept the light of this truth can we hope for a brighter day. 

This post is sponsored by Paleo Bars. Whether you're a busy CEO or entrepreneur, an elite athlete or soulful guru, or some kind of undistinguished loser who lacks such accomplishments, this is the processed, packaged snack for you. I personally will not go without these bars on a daily basis. Whether I'm banging my head off the wall in the administration job I just ended up in, tending to my not particularly formidable physique, or writing a near-nihilistic blog for a handful of readers, Paleo Bars keep me on top of my game. My bin is full of the nonrecyclable wrappers. Still not convinced? Try them yourself. You can now get a 10% discount on your first month of a Paleo Bar subscription. Or just grab one at the tills in Aldi before the cashier relentlessly fucks your purchases towards you in the imaginary bagging area.

Talkin' 'bout my Education

When I was young, I was a golden child. I was happy, playful, and possessed a love of learning. The course was set for an effervescent man of integrity and destiny to emerge. My life was a garden of wonder, freedom, and insightful naivety. And then they incarcerated me for having too beautiful a soul, and called it my education. Years of factory-like traumatic lessons wore down my curiosity, my intelligence, and my free spirit, as per the specifications of the cold masters of mechanistic hegemony. They "taught" me to be a cookie-cutter cog in the machine, showing me how to grow a plant, use my creativity, read, write, and do maths. 

The teachers — those craven, malicious servants of the regime — would ask questions only when they served to humiliate their fragile pupils. "What do you want to be when you grow up?", one asked me during a class, knowing full well that a child could not hope to produce a credible answer at that age. 

"I want to be happy", I retorted, rejecting the chains of domination they tried to put on me. 

"I don't think you understand the question," the jaded devil sneered. 

"I don't think you understand life, maan," I told him, in what might well be a revisionist, fact-shy remembering of the past. It turned out that I didn't actually understand the question and needed to attend some remedial lessons. 

It didn't matter though, as those sons of bitches couldn't take away my crayons. It took a great effort maintaining that freedom, as I was plagued by persistent urges to shove the various colours into my orifices, which would have resulted in me being deprived them. Colouring things in was my one salvation in primary school. One day, the barren, dry witch who taught us handed out a colouring-in picture of all the various cultures of the world. I relished such an image, and enthusiastically coloured all their complexions all the colours of the rainbow. 

"People don't look like that," she said patronisingly, from her withered, loveless lips. I paused with bemusement, pulling my head back from my picture. 

"Everything must seem grey in your world, you dull cunt." 

Those Nazis interrogated me for ages about where I learned those words from, and "not from this brain drain" wasn't a satisfactory answer. 

The child Fairflower before and after three weeks of classes.

As the years of my sentence laboured on, the teaching got worse. My grades dropped steadily. No standardised test could accurately gauge my unique abilities: orange cordial palate, imagination, my sense of fun. All my strengths were things that are difficult to assess (much like my appreciation of wine and art are now). I came home one day with a letter from my principal, which I was told should only be read by my mother. As she read it, tears began to swell in her eyes. 

"What's wrong, mama? Did I do bad?", I asked. 

"No," she said bravely, wiping her tears away, "it says you're a brilliant student. A genius, who needs to be held back a level to give the other students a chance." 

"Really?" 

"Yes, it's the onions that are making me cry." 

I embraced her. "Oh, that's great, mama." 

It took me years to realise that she had lied, and that it actually had informed her that I was "mentally deficient". I pieced together the deception over the years. All the clues were there: the fact I was held back a year and still struggled; the fact I was held back a year; the fact that there were no onions in the kitchen that day; the fact that I had read the letter before she did. The biggest clue was probably the "you are dense and will amount to nothing" comments that came often from even the most encouraging teachers. How wrong they turned out to be. Unless, by "nothing", they meant drifting aimlessly into TEFL teaching, in which case they were right. 

By secondary school, I felt school was enslavement with no hope of escape. I had become so lackadaisical and insolent, and I often had to stay back for detention, making my day longer. My only consolation was poetry. When they did finally decide to suspend me for bad behaviour, it was poetry that softened the blow. As I walked into class to pick up my bag and jacket, my fellow students stood up on their desks, one by one, and recited, "O Captain! My Captain!", as a mawkish, 1980s movie soundtrack seemed to fill the air. The authoritarians clamped down hard on rebellious actions after that, claiming that the fall Clarkey had taken while trying to stand on his desk caused his concussion. We all knew he was just a bit dopey. Towards the end of sixth year, I finally felt the chains weaken. I initiated an impromptu flashmob, where we all progressively joined in singing 'Let the Sunshine In' by The 5th Dimension. We marched right out the front door, as the principal heckled at us to return to our class. 

"Order! Order!", he yelped, "You must stay under the crushing weight of our dominion. It's for your own good!" 

We headed to the park, where we sat around in circles, smoking, laughing, and picking flowers. We discussed all the important things in life: video games, football, wanking, how to score some booze, TV shows, girls we'd like to bang, and the blatant preferability of an anarchic society. 

Let me tell you happily that it hasn't done me any harm. I was a flower child during those wondrous days of youth. And I still am. This bird finally flown from his cage. If you feel trapped in your life, particularly if you are still in school, rest assured that you are sane and they are the crazy ones. Don't allow them to oppress you with their rote learning, thought control, bullshit religion lessons, or persistent assessment. Any adult will tell you that retaining information and abstract thinking are of no value on the real world. Like me, all you need is your intuition. In time, you'll learn to develop your own moral compass and learn your own path, like I did. A medical compass and a legal compass might be necessary too if you want to avoid anything resembling academic learning for the rest of your life, like me. It can be difficult sometimes, but since I walked out of that school gate for the last time, at the age of twenty-two, I have had no regrets.

So Much Noise

Having ignored it for over a year, I decided to reopen my inbox. My patience and calm had returned, allowing me to once again face the needs of my subscribers. It was as if a million voices cried out in terror and pleaded with me all at once, desperate for advice: the clueless, the reckless, the feckless, the hopeless, the helpless, the gormless, the careless, the homeless, the talentless, the penniless, the soulless, the loveless, the worthless, the pointless, the defenceless, the directionless, and the tasteless. "I cannot tie my own shoelaces without some validation," they say in undertones, readable only between the lines. I'll see what I can do for you, friends. By the time I'm done administering my remedial (and remedial) words, you will hopefully be feeling fearless, effortless, relentless, boundless, and ceaseless. 

Life is full of difficult choices (if you are pathetic and weak).

Dear Nigel, 

I can't sleep at night. I'm restless, and often find myself with my phone in hand, flicking through apps. I've got into a terrible routine of overstimulating on caffeine and sugar to help combat my tiredness and then being unable to sleep properly. Any tips on how to get out of this funk I'm in? 

Barry Burton
Missouri, USA 

Nigel Says: That's unacceptable. You suffer from night terrors and wake up in a cold sweat? It has to be terrorism. Fear of an impending terrorist attack lurks in the back of your mind. You won't find peace in your slumbers until the attacks of recent years stop. Until then, blame Islam. All was well with the world until the Prophet Muhammed contaminated the world with his ideas. If you are afraid of appearing bigoted, engage on a crusade against all religion. Wish it to resign from its (give or take) ten thousand-year-old tenure on planet Earth, and tell people you meet, with your brow furrowed, that religion is the cardinal cause of evil in the world. If you lose faith in this enterprise, repeat your unsolicited mantras frequently in your social circles or on social media. Or just randomly knife people you don't like in the street - ISIS would respect you too much for that to target you.

 ************************************* 

Dear Nigel, 

I've recently immigrated to Ireland, but I forgot to update my passport before leaving home and now it's nearly out of date. Any idea how an ex-pat like me can go about getting a replacement? 

Ada Wong 
Montreal, Canada 

Nigel Says: You forgot? This is a disaster. I imagine your were distracted and fatigued, two of the many negative consequences of our unnatural western diet. Do yourself a favour and ditch the gluten and the dairy. Soon you will have knocked years off your appearance. You will possess more energy and a more alert mind. You will retain everything. All of life's drudgery will become a sweet breeze, and you will feel happy all the time. The sun will always shine in the morning and peace will accompany you at all times. Let your indignation and anger wear itself out on a campaign against gluten and dairy. Their very existence is an affront to your health, so aggressively encourage everyone to ditch them. 

************************************* 

Hey Nige, 

Any cures for a hangover? I went a bit mental last night, and now I'm dying in work - until 5.30! I want to take some paracetamol, but I've heard it would put pressure on my already fucked liver?

Terry Wilkinson 
Leeds, UK 

Nigel Says: A fucked liver? The only thing you should say fuck to is big pharma. Those bastards are keeping us down. It's a fucking outrage. It's all them and the government, I swear to God… 

[The rest of this post, in a later, more pacific edit, has been abridged for reasons concerning veracity of claims, mouth foam, and a deficiency in scientific knowledge.] 

************************************* 

Dear Nigel, 

Can you help me? I'm in the dog house. I forgot my wedding anniversary, and my wife's a bit pissed off. How do I sweet talk my way out of this one? How do I make this right? 

James Egerton
Melbourne, Australia 

Nigel Says: I'm afraid I have bad news for you. There's no coming back. The sad fact is that these days, you can't say anything anymore. It doesn't matter what you say to your wife, someone will take offence. There's always someone out there waiting to accuse you of misogyny, homophobia, racism, Islamophobia, transphobia, privilege, xenophobia, white supremacism, or some curious bigotry towards the Welsh. And all the slurs of cuckoldry, triggering, liberal guilt, "virtue signalling", pandering to the left, populism, safe spaces, feminazism, feminist agenda, entitlement, and beta masculinity won't help turn the situation around. The world is against common sense. It's a fucking joke. 

********************************** 

Hi Nigel, 

I was wondering if you had any tips on how to stay on a juicing diet? I'm always on the verge of quitting. 

Tara M.
Limerick, Ireland 

Nigel Says: Typical. Why am I not surprised? It's this fucking horse shit again. The government once again have failed to provide for the people of this country. I have a right mind to send them a letter inquiring as to what year we are living in, and then seek confirmation that it is 2017 and not Medieval times. (I know fuck all about Medieval times actually, so it could be.) How much more of this crap do we have to take? And what about the weather? Fucking hell. I'd advise badmouthing everything in this country — it's quite hard to insert solids in your mouth if bilious words are always coming out. Also, I'd strongly advise investing in a NutriBullet. It's basically an expensive food processor, but I feel you aren't really on a juicing diet unless you've purchased one. 

******************************* 

Dear Nigel, 

My job puts me on a knife edge every morning. I have to cover any teacher who calls in sick. Sometimes there is a free teacher available to cover the class, so I don't have to, but that isn't always the case. Besides, sometimes more than one person is sick. Often I struggle to accomplish the mundane, weekly tasks, never mind the more ambitious, long-term project work. All this comes to a head first thing in the morning, when I'm short on caffeine and suddenly under pressure to prepare for the class I wasn't expecting to do. What should I do? 

Nigel Fairflower
Dublin, Ireland 

Nigel Says: Desperate situations demand desperate measures. While in the sanctuary of your flat, curse the name of everyone who comes to mind. Ask yourself why you do this, and long for your escape. Allow the anger to swell to a level that would meet the standard of Emperor Palpatine. As you walk to work like a groggy bear, find flaws with everything. It's too cold, hot, windy, or rainy. The neighbours don't recycle properly, and there's dog shit on the path. SUVs pulling out of their driveway try to bully your right of way on the pavement. While passing the local primary school, blame the parents for their precious children's lack of spatial awareness, especially the ones who allow them to cycle on the footpath. The van in the loading bay outside the local butcher's is susceptible to criticism, as it blocks your view of oncoming traffic, but surely it's traffic in general that deserves the true wrath of your mental finger-pointing? But fuck it, blame them all: the slow walkers, the people coming the other way who can't negotiate the footpath properly, the rich pricks in the massive houses you pass, the sun which always beats you head-on on a summer's morning, the lack of shade on your route, the humidity, your colleagues, the need to work, the lack of notes for what to cover, the difficulty in finding what you need for class. Go to town with your anger, and paint it blame-coloured. Give no more than a grunting response to anyone who speaks to you, or complain for a bit. Simmer with rage as you head towards the class and a little bit of your coffee trickles down the front of your hand. Arrive in class, and, on a dime, become the friendliest, most sympathetic, most useful version of yourself in front of a group of people who depend on your knowledge and skills to guide them. After two hours of this exorcising activity and the consumption of your caffeinated beverage, come out of the class refreshed, energised, and smiling. Pro-tip: Never (ever) learn a lesson from this.

Sadly, I have no advice for split ends.

Issuing Bonds

The James Bond series has become flaccid from overuse? Not if they can get their hands on these ideas while they are fresh.

On his way out the door of MI6, an over-sensitive Bond indulges Moneypenny in some flirtatious fencing. One of her comments cuts deep, and Bond replays it in his head throughout the day. He grows increasingly irritable and insecure during his mission over the following week, and when a henchman, from whom Bond is trying to extract information, tries to provoke him, Bond loses his cool and shoots him, leading to mission failure. 

JAMES BOND will return in IN MY MIND ONLY

Bond is portrayed as a woman. Sadly, she is as affirmative a representation as most Bond girls. She acts, or fails to act, based on how she is feeling (something she continually asks herself), and she often texts her friends or consults women's magazines for advice. She worries about her work/life balance, her weight, keeping up-to-date with the latest trends, and whether or not murdering people challenges her femininity. In the end, she fails her mission, having blown her cover on a drunken Instagram post. 

JAMES BOND will return in SHOE-RAKER 

To his horror, Bond has contracted HIV. He is suspended from duty by M until he has informed the legions of women he has slept with over the last year. It's a prickly task, however, as many of his romances ended on unfavourable terms. In an artful, meandering story, dusted with a sad humour, 007 relives the many joyful nights he has had, as well as confronting his many selfish mistakes. 

JAMES BOND will return in WITH RETROVIRUS FROM LOVE 

Idris Elba portrays James Bond in a remake of the 1970s blaxploitation film, Live and Let Die. He spends the entire story going from one what-the-fuck moment to another, baffled and outraged that all the black people he encounters are either hoodlums or voodoo priests. Yet, he does much better than he does in the original film, where the MI6 sent the whitest man alive, dressed in beige slacks and a navy blazer, into New Orleans to do some spying. 

JAMES BOND will return in CRINGE AND LET DIE 

In a light hearted story, Bond tries to rekindle the brief romance he had with Plenty O'Toole in Diamonds are Forever. The MI6 man, who is eager to complete his unfinished mission, pursues "the one who got away" a few months previously in Las Vegas. But Plenty is having none of it, the memory of being flung out Bond's hotel window into a swimming pool by the mob still fresh in her memory. Wrapped up in a fool's errand of a randy older man, the chesty socialite has to fend off Bond's persistent advances in increasingly more exotic locations. 

JAMES BOND will return in PLENTY O' FOOL 

Plenty.

After years of diversification slowly wearing down the patriarchal edifice that is the James Bond series, the producers finally allow Bond to be more than the entitled white male we have grown accustomed to. Bond is played now by a blonde, super-strong thug, the likes of which Connery, Dalton, and Brosnan had to face in the finales of their films. He pursues his targets with a savage relentlessness, and he plows through them with sheer physicality and brute force. 

JAMES BOND will return in CASINO ROYALE 

After a long stint in the Middle East, a sober Bond has an epiphany in the desert and decides to surrender to Allah. He grows his beard, turns to Mecca, and renames himself Muhammed Kafala. Immediately, he is branded a terrorist by western governments for all the destruction and death he has wrought all over the world. 

JAMES BOND will return in HYPOCRITICAL IMPERIALIST BULLSHIT 

Having reached the age of retirement, Bond packs up his stuff and moves to Japan. Promised by Tiger Tanaka, years earlier, a life surrounded by subservient women, Bond is surprised to find that the country isn't as sexist as he remembers it. His disappointment and frustration getting the better of him, and Bond resorts to groping women on the Tokyo subway. But a feminist group, tired of such antics, target him and threaten to kill him. He seeks protection from the Japanese secret service, but they refuse to help, still sore from the time Bond got half of their members killed in Blofeld's volcano base. To make matters worse, his previously effective disguise as a Japanese man no longer serves him as well as it used to. Alone, elderly Bond must fend off an onslaught of aggrieved Japanese women while trying to flee the country.

JAMES BOND will return in GROPEFINGERS

Bond's masterful disguise.

Bond attends a social event, only to realise the affair is far more casual than he expected. Embarrassed by his formal, white dinner jacket, he assumes everyone is looking at him. He feels humiliated when someone asks if he is going to a fancy dress party later. He gets drunk to help ease the situation, but it only drives him into melancholy. He is escorted out of the building by security for feeling up a woman, and wakes up the next day on the street with a kebab soiling his perfectly white jacket. 

JAMES BOND will return in BLUNDER BALL 

In a prequel to Live and Let and Die, we see how Bond gets caught up with the teenage girl who he's sleeping with at the beginning of the film. In the beginning of Roger Moore's first outing, he hides the girl from M, who visits 007 at home, but we never get any backstory on her.  Following the exploits of Bond and his precocious, young companion, we witness a hilarious caper, including a lengthy exposition of Bond bedding the nubile beauty. 
JAMES BOND will return in THE JAILBAIT WHO LOVED ME 

"It isn't statutory rape if her father doesn't find out." - Britain in the 1970s

While investigating a case in Oxford University, Bond beds an undergrad synchronised swimmer. Unexpectedly, he comes away with more than just a night of pleasant memories. In her dormitory, he finds himself leafing through a copy of Judith Butler's Gender Trouble. Initially scoffing at the ideas he finds inside, he soon finds himself challenged by them, and having read a copy he has purchased, he becomes a convert. He grows to believe that his fight against the megalomaniacal terrorists of the world has been in vain, and that the true enemy is the social structures and tacit presuppositions that keep half the population in subjugation.

JAMES BOND will return in THE SPECTRE OF PATRIARCHY

Get Up the Yard

Roddy Doyle arrived at court in a blazer and a crisp white shirt, sans tie. He wore jeans over his shiny black shoes, and his face bore only glasses and his smug grin, which seems written into his DNA. Brendan O'Carroll was clad more formally, sporting a suit with a gaudy pink waistcoat and bowtie, which he may have borrowed from a cheap wedding band. The high-level of public interest meant they walked into a full house for their hearing. Both agonisingly close to the prize of writing the quintessential, ungainsayable portrayal of working-class Dublin, the two men had become locked in a blood rivalry to prove who is the true custodian of authentic Dublin life. Other writers had expressed interest in the chance to depict the life and rise of Irish hero Jimmy Nugent in a theatrical film, but only two remained undeterred, after a distasteful level of competitiveness. Unable to resolve the issue amicably, the two parties were summoned to court, suing and counter-suing each other for libel and slander. It is here where the situation devolved beyond any resolution or credibility.

Our two brick-wall aficionado malcontents. 

The trial proceeded smoothly at first, everyone involved agreeing that he who represented Dublin best deserved the film rights. As the hearing proceeded, both contestants grew visibly more agitated. Doyle was the one who broke first. After some impassioned interjections and heckling from both sides, he stood up, and, with the palms of his hands facing outwards, he began a monologue.

"Look," he implored. "Look. It's basically like this."

Walking to the front of the room with a self-assured smile, he began a defence of his credentials. O'Carroll, intimidated and irked by the theatrics, promptly joined him, and the real, gloves-off battle commenced. Prowling around each other, the two men argued their cases, like to stags caught in the lock of their antlers, blood-rivals pitted in mortal combat.  

"I have an intimate relationship with Dublin," Doyle asserted.

"You do in your bollox." O'Carroll retorted. 

Doyle tried to return to the matter-of-fact flow of his soliloquy, but the star of Mrs Brown's Boys was quick with his interruptions. 

"Ah, Jaysus, me mickey's all itchy after your ma last night."

Doyle continued. "I suppose you could say I have… revelled… in the very soul and character of this city. I like to walk along the streets of this fair city. [O'Carroll rolled his eyes.] Maybe I'll have a coffee or do some pottering around the shops. I hear people talking, watch them in their daily… habitat. I see their lives, their struggles, their joys, their triumphs. Even their grief. " And so Doyle meandered on, never straying from the narrow path between the commonplace and the sublime, a path so ineffable that nothing is actually said. O'Carroll mimed a yawn, provoking giggle from some quarters of the audience. He gave his own statement, which was about thirty percent the length of Doyle's, primarily because of the accelerated speed of his speech. It comprised of crude jokes and working-class Dublin idioms, such as, "I'll burst ye" and "I did in me hole." With his opponent attracting much laughter, Doyle tried a few idioms of his own, but the sheltered implausibility of "me auld segosha" and "gerr ourra dat garden" produced more silence than was comfortable, and cringe seeped out of the pours of the audience.

"Ah, there's been some real characters in this city", he mused, feigning feelings of reminiscence and trying to change the subject. "I know them all so well," O'Carroll butted in, initiating a game of blatant name dropping, where both men fought to hold back their burgeoning resentment. They claimed to have met them all: Luke Kelly, Eamon Dunphy, Phil Lynott, auld Mister Brennan, the "Ah, leave ir out" woman, Molly Malone, Brendan Behan, Ana Liffey, Maureen Potter, Dustin the turkey, Leo Burdock, Conor McGregor, Bella from Fair City, Zozimus "the last gleeman of the Pale", Glenn Hansard, Liam Brady, Ronny Drew, and every single resident of the Liberties. Within several minutes, the names began to dry up, and both men reached for increasingly implausible and less prestigious names. O'Carroll tried to convince the audience that 40 Coats was a real person, and Doyle spent several minutes regaling the audience with his encounter with the imposing spectre of James Joyce. 

From the many alibis of authenticity, the argument moved to defining events of the city, and the competitors had experienced it all: they were both at U2's first gig, remembered the Liberties in the rare old times, cheered on Heffo's boys in the 1976 All-Ireland football final, felt grief and outrage at the Stardust fire and the 1974 bombings, got lost in the hazy euphoria of Italia '90, drank tea at Bewley's in its heyday, ached with nostalgia for Nelson's Pillar, derided to this day the Millennium Clock and that weird multicolour fountain on O'Connell Street in the late 1990s, ate every morning a bowl of coddle as pale and unappetising as is possible. They both rode on the trams when they were kids, watched films in the Ambassador, revelled in the orgy of the Rocky Horror Picture Show in the Classic, and spent an inordinate amount of time chatting to Pat Ingoldsby on the Ha'penny Bridge. 

The men increasingly resorted to interrupting and speaking over each other. Their voices became louder, and their ridicule of each other's work became more and more vicious. Foam forming at the corner of their mouths, the antagonists squared off against each other, pushing and eyeballing one another, until O'Carroll suddenly smacked Doyle in the face with a perfectly placed head butt. Doyle's glasses flew away from his face as he fell to the ground. O'Carroll circled his opponent, trying to outflank him, in order to arrive at a better kicking position. Doyle, taking advantage of the comedian's dancing movements, hooked his right leg from under him, bringing him also to the ground. The severity of the body slam told O'Carroll he had underestimated the soft-spoken novelist, and when the two returned to their feet, he lunged at him more ferociously, pushing him quickly against the wall. Lost in a bout of savagery, O'Carroll let fly with rapid-fire punches to the torso. Doyle pushed him away from the shoulders, and when O'Carroll reflexively dove back in, he adroitly side-stepped him, delivering him to the wall. They pierced each others souls with their eyes, both men full of burning hate. "I'll batter you, you dopey prick." said O'Carroll with venom.

"We'll let me tell you now,", Doyle started, short of breath, into another banal anecdote, "I decided a couple of years back to take up a martial art. Now, I would hardly describe myself as Bruce Lee, but…". O'Carroll lunged at Doyle once more before he could continue, but he was struck down by a decisive judo chop. When he returned to his feet, the men circled each other once more, locked intensely in a deadly game of chess. Eventually, they were separated, and the hearing was suspended until further notice.

As is the way with all farce, it came to nought. Unimpressed with the indulgent self-promotion of the two men in the courtroom — though somewhat pleased with the fight — Jimmy Nugent has withdrawn his permission for either parties to make a biographical film about his life. With a sonorous cadence, and the near-divine authority of an Egyptian Pharaoh, he decreed that, "der both gobsites."  And so, neither James Drives Home nor Jimmy's Mickey will see the light of production. But the battle doesn't end there; Roddy Doyle and Brendan O'Carroll have brought their dispute into other arenas. Unable to let go of the non-existent prize of being the champion and oracle of Dublin culture, they fight on endlessly, across Twitter, on the streets of working-class Dublin, in interviews and newspaper columns. Doyle has avowed to write another one of his working-class pub-dweller dialogues, where the two interlocutors disparage O'Carroll as an irksome goblin. He promises it will be his unfunniest, most prosaic piece yet. O'Carroll is working a new character into his sitcom, Mrs Brown's Boys. Provisionally named "posh prick", Mrs Brown is due to break the fourth wall every time he speaks, gesturing 'wanker' to the studio audience. 

The project has now fallen to what might best be described as a committee of safe mediocrity. Perhaps this is for the best, as their lack of an all-molesting ego will sure ensure the project's completion. Pierce Brosnan will direct and star, leading to sleepless nights for pigs, who dread the amount of ham that will be produced. Jimmy Nugent will be played by Dave Duffy, better known as Leo Dowling in Fair City. Co-starring will be Amy Huberman, Amanda Brunkner, Rosanna Davison, and Callum Best. With rumours that Andrew Scott may well be joining the cast, we might be looking at a pig Holocaust. Ronan Keating will produce the title song 'Go on, You Good Thing'. The film is expected to be released early 2018, just in time for Nugent's Day.

Novel Ideas

"Why don't you write a novel?", she asked me the other day. It's a good question, but I don't have any good answers. Writing a novel for such an inveterate perfectionist like me is akin to Zeno's Paradox or The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, a kind of self-defeating regression, deriving from permanent dissatisfaction. Well, this is my latest approach anyway. So far, it seems far better than my previous method, where I was inspired by great ideas and then tried to put them to paper by doing anything but write. Admittedly, I do lapse back into that old habit, particularly when I lie back and imagine what a great author I would be if I brought my stories to life. Aside from The Untarnished Beauty of the Unbridled Soul (the completion of which approaches the release date tending to infinity, like an asymptotic curve), I have some inspired ideas for novels and short stories. I will now share some of them with you.

Darren, an awkward theologian has a coffee date with a charming prospect. He excuses himself to go to the toilet. After several flights of stairs and many doors he realises that he’s walking down the exact same staircase over and over again. When he tries to return to the top, he is met with an apparent infinity of stairs. How long is forever, he finally asks for practical reasons? Is he doomed to stay here for all eternity? And more importantly, is he making an idiot of himself in the eyes of the girl? The Lonely Patter of a Single Pair of Footsteps plays on anxieties social and existential, and warns us to be careful what we wish for. 

Terence, an egotistical middle-aged man, decides to purchase a simple drill in a DIY store. Unbeknownst to him, he has initiated his tragic downfall. The pillars of his life begin to crumble; his marriage, his twenty-five-year-old mistress, his job, and his hairline are all on the verge of tumbling down around him. Will he be able to figure out in time what has brought him such great misfortune? Or will the curse continue to bore further into his life and dreams, like a Bosch HDS181-02 into stiff plasterboard? The title: Drilling Holes. 

“We can give you your life back… provided you kept your receipt.”

A reliable, hard-working woman laments the stultifying, conventional life she has stumbled into. Once an acerbic, chain-smoking goth, she used to flaunt her formidable intellect, revel in her wit, and take pride in her licentiousness. Longing for her glamorous college days, when she found power and joy in nihilism, her preoccupation with deadlines and bills depresses her. Holding a scissors to her neck, does she intend to bring her misery to a total conclusion, or will she chop her hair into the whimsical bob she wore in university? The Glittering Void asks if the magic of youth can be recaptured from deadening adult life, and it challenges our views on what gives us strength.

Gerry, a young college student, wakes up disturbingly aroused. Plagued all day by the urge to masturbate, he tries to find an appropriate place and time, but all his efforts are foiled by a cast of idiosyncratic friends and eccentric associates. He begins to wonder if everything he's witnessing is real and if his urges are actually him being drawn into madness. Is his urge to get naked merely sexual or a sign of his mind sliding dangerously away from the conventions of society? The Irresistible Pull documents a fragile mind and libido desperately trying to grip onto reality and one's appendage. 

A TEFL teacher nears his retirement. His recalcitrant young adult students cannot understand or use the present perfect. With his faculties beginning to fade, will he be able to carry out the well-staged lessons, and teach his students the value of the tense? Or will they forever struggle to talk clearly about their life experiences and things that have been happening since a particular point in the past. All These Things That I Have Done is a poignant tribute the crumbling majesty of age, the loneliness of a faulty memory, and an effective (and surprisingly simple) approach to demystifying a relatively straightforward tense.  

A couple, who have been together since their teens, fail to realise their relationship correlates to the career of Irish boyband Westlife. Meeting in 1999, their love blossoms, and soon they are flying without wings. As the years roll by, their relationship grows more successful, despite its obvious mediocrity. Sinead feels blessed for the love songs that her favourite boyband provide for her love, not realising that their entire career is contingent on her and her boyfriend, Dave. She can't believe that she's the fool again, when Dave cheats shortly into their marriage and Brian McFadden leaves the band. Inevitably, their love falls into decline, and after endless stormy arguments, it looks like its over. A Little World of Our Own explores the sad nobility of trying to resurrect the flames of love from dying embers and questions if any Westlife reunion would be successful enough to help Shane recover the fortune he lost in the property market. 

A militant atheist wakes aghast one night, realising a fate more fearful than the inevitable, eternal annihilation that awaits him and everyone — he is the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Unable to surrender to the idea, he grapples with the almighty burden, the guilt, and the deep empathetic sorrow that has just been revealed to him, and he must bear the pain of trying to share divine love with those who grow increasingly alienated at his every word. I'm Not Even Supposed to Be Here is where doubt meets faith and profound love meets the limits of language, a story where witnessing salvation meets being forsaken. 

A genteel, British tea aficionado realises her sugar addiction has worsened beyond the stage of type-two diabetes and progressed to cancer. The life that is enjoyed comes head-to-head with the life that is truncated by illness. A dilemma plays out, as we delve into the rich tapestry of her dolce vita, and her struggle to cut down the amount of sugar in her tea. One Lump or Two? explores the sweeter side of facing cancer. A must for those with a sweet tooth and/or struggling with a deadly illness. 

If you steal any of my ideas, late '90s futurism Westlife will come haunt you in your dreams.