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.