Both sets of visitors were referred to either as “the yanks” or “the yankees”. They were viewed as richer, though not every Christmas card contained a token of their wealth. They were also much more sophisticated, enjoying a level of culture far higher than available in Ireland. So all members of the family had to engage in an act of collective effort, referred to by their unsympathetic neighbours as “putting our their egg bag.”

 The paterfamilias or “oul’ lad” had to take regular baths, whereas beforehand a bath was a rare luxury, occurring at most once a year, and not always then. He would rationalise his aversion to water by saying: “Once I’m dead they can clane me, and once I’m in the ground no one’ll see whether I’m clane or clatty.” Such contrariness was a matter of real concern to the  “woman of the house”, and so plans were put in place to lessen contacts between him and the Yankees to a minimum.

 If time and finances allowed there might be structural adjustments to the house. One of these was the addition of an inside lavatory.  This might replace a “lean-to” structure referred to euphemistically as The Sugarhouse, though any disruption in the facilities dealing with bodily function was bound to be resisted by the “man of the house” who would express bewilderment at why the “hole in the yard” wouldn’t be good enough.  Everyone’s hair would be washed almost daily, and the children would have to undergo the torture of their locks being trawled by a heavy comb in the search for nits. The children would undergo a “no frills” crash course in manners and correct behaviour with the males being physically chastised each time they attempted to pick their noses. The man of the house was also told to leave his proboscis undisturbed, to refrain from using coarse or vulgar language, and to not break wind, especially at meal times. A toothbrush, with toothpaste might even be bought. Any miscellaneous expenses might be defrayed by the man of the house avoiding the pub. What’s more unsightly displays of over-indulgence in alcohol would no doubt disgust the yanks.

 The hen house, sometimes located in an old Volkswagen Beetle, would be towed out of sight or given on loan to a distant neighbour, while any other unsightly visions, such as piles of rubbish or excreta, would be removed.

 The visitors’ arrival was often anti-climatic. If they were native Yankees they might exhale delightedly at the quaintness of it all. The visit would end with the formulaic “You must come and visit us in the States” but it was seldom accompanied by the proffering of an airline ticket or displays of largesse. Once their (rental) car had staggered down the rutted lane there would be a collective sigh of relief, usually initiated by the man of the house stating: “Well thank fuck the hoors are gone. These new pants are cuttin’ the balls off me” followed up with “What’s for tae?” The “oul’ lad might be let back in, smelling strongly of urine, while the woman of the house would start scolding her husband, “Me mother always said I was makin’ the biggesht mistake o’ me life marryin’ you ya lazy, good-for-nuttin’ hape o’ shite, an’ she was right the Lord have mercy on her.” Little Seamus would then attempt to stem her wrath by asking: “Mammy, can I pick me nose now?”

Jack and Jill
Went up the hill
So Jack could lick Jill’s fanny.
But Jack got a shock -
And a mouthful of cock
When he found out that Jill was a tranny.

Jack and Jill
Went up the hill
To do a spot of kissing.
Jack made a pass
And grabbed Jill’s ass -
Now his two front teeth are missing.

Why did Dr Brendan Snott cross the road?

Because he was being picked on.

… And don’t forget, Every Little Helps

Aaah! Isn’t it cute!

 Some months later the invitation arrived, but to the composer’s disgust the first screening was to take place in a cinema well known for showing “porno” films. Swallowing his he went along anyway, but decided to keep a low profile, so he sat at the very back, alongside an elderly pair.

 The film left nothing to the imagination; there were graphic scenes featuring masturbation, group sex, anal sex and oral sex, while towards the end there was even some scenes featuring a dog having sex with a woman.

 When it was over the highly-embarrassed composer bent over to the couple beside him and explained that he was only there because he had written the film score, to which the old woman replied: “We’re only here because that was our dog.”

 For a start, the title “Directo0r General”. It is, to paraphrase The Bard, full of Strength and fury, but it signifies fu7ck all, except that its holder is an over-paid intellectual dwarf who sees himself as occupying a more rarefied air than the race of common humanity, far more precious than the semi human life forms his organisation seeks to help. How many Director Generals are there are on FAS courses? Very few.. Let us excuse the FAS supervisors who generally do sterling work with very little recognition for their toil. The reality of being a member of a FAS scheme is to work hard for the equivalent of the money you’d get from the dole anyway, but yet to suffer the scorn and the ill= natured contempt of the scum, yes, the human rubbish, who believe that they have a right to look down their snot-filled on their fellow human citizens.

I challenge Mr Paul O’Toole. Is it not with these people you most readily identify rather than the people on FAS courses and schemes?

 I recall how, as an employee of Cavan Co. Council, helping to set yup Cavan County Museum, myself and the museum curator were able to count on the help and assistance of the members of a FAS scheme. If it had not been for them there would be no Cavan County Museum. Yet, on the day when the museum was to be opened,, the members of the FAS scheme were initially excluded from the invitation. This was only rectified when the Museum’s curator put his foot down and said that if they weren’t invited he wouldn’t be there either. (And let me add that I wouldn’t have darkened that pantomime of an opening with my presence either had it not been for the presence of the FAS scheme members. That way I had someone to talk to.

 Let 8s not overlook the less than honourable role being played in the FAS pantomime by the Trades Unions. Dominic Egan told me of how he relied on the FAS scheme in the County Museum, but yet he recognised that they were being used by the County Council as a form of cheap labour. (he was a decent guy who wanted to see people paid proper wages for their work, not peanuts.) He also told me that he felt that the Trades Unions would not put up with the way the FAS scheme there had been made into a permanent fixture. That was nearly fourteen years’ ago, and as far as I know the FAS scheme is still a feature of the museum’s existence – and it’s not Dominic Egan’s fault. 

 The Director General hints at a name change, yet let me suggest a name by which his organisation has been viewed by those who have participated in its “training programmes”, as well as member of the general public, as being most apposite. FARCE.  An organisation whose senior echelons are addicted to a five-star lifestyle at public expense, who hypocritically look down upon those they are supposed to help,. Let us also add here that many of those who are permanent employees of FAS, who are entrusted with teaching courses of dubious validity, are often closely related to FAS employees, so isn’t it nice to keep it in the family, and consign others to lifetimes of poverty and destitution –that’s if they’re unwilling to do the decent thing and emigrate and leave Ireland in the grip of the human crabs who’ve always ruled the roost here. .

 Let us recall some of the television advertising – all paid for by you-know-who. It featured the artiste Adele King (any relation of Adge?) better known as Twink telling people to say “FAS”. I suppose it made a change from ringing up her estranged oboist husband and telling him what a rotten faggot he was for impregnating his girl fiend and announcing the pregnancy on St  Valentine’s Day. She wasn’t intoning “You could retrain – it’s never too late”, when she was telling hubby that she was going to dip his oboe in Jay’s Fluid and stick it up his arse, after she’d cut his cock off to  prevent him making any further “bastards” with his “whores”.

 This is the reality under which so many people in Ireland have to suffer, and to be honest it’s getting a bit tiresome being lectured to by that pampered cancerous poseur intellectual  Brian Lenihan Jr. I don’t carte at those who will be outraged by what I’m about to say, but Being Brian Lenihan Sr’s son may have helped you get “Schol” in Trinner, butt could it stop you getting pancreatic cancer?  Illness or disability is nothing to be ashamed of, I think most decent people will agree. It’s no joke for anyone, but why should Brian Lenihan Jr., the Minister for Finance, who is doing the country down with such arrogant aplomb, be any different from a man or  a woman in the street who’s been working hard all their lives and who never had the chance to attend Trinity College, far less become a “scholar” there be any different? So why should such unfortunates have to suffer as a result? Maybe not at Brian Lenihan or any other government minister’s directions, but at the hands of their employees in the Public Service?  You see when I was in Trinity., studying in the library on a Friday night, I thought I was a true scholar. But no! The only ones entitled to sup at the banquet of riches are the members of “The New Class”; not the New Red Class of Milovan Djilas, but the new Green Class, or here in Cavan the New Blue Class. whose fathers are politicians in either national or local government,. Clever and all that I thought I was I somehow missed that.)  You see I could have become a legal practitioner, but I realised, perhaps in time, that I loved justice too much (and myself not enough) to become a lawyer.

I have long felt that Cavan has been losing out as a tourism destination because of its reluctance to embrace Romantic tourism. This may be because many of those charged, either past or present, with marketing the county don’t know where it is. There are some romantic locations, not least the Dun A’ Ri forest park with its Lovers’ Walk. Well I’d like to suggest a couple of other locations with romantic connections, but to do so I have to tell a love story so bear with me please.

 As a young teenager I recall spending quite a bit of time in the back rows of Cavan’s fleapit The Magnet Cinema. This was the location of some voyages of discovery by me when I wasn’t really looking at the screen that much. I recall an advertising campaign that ran in those days for a Dublin night spot which seemed to be the very epitome of sophistication: it was called Zhivago’s Nightclub and the tagline, spoken by a gent with a camp English accent, was “Love stories begin in Zhivago’s”. Well there is a location here in Cavan where love stories begin. One of the heroes was inspired not so much by Boris Pasternak’s novel but by the over-sentimentalised film adaptation starring Julie Christie and Omar Sharif. In fact he really identified with Sharif to the extent that he trimmed his moustache to look like him.

The location for my love story is a decommissioned convent which has been forced to close its doors because of the fall off in vocations and turn itself into a second-hand clothes emporium and vintage car repair shop, which is called (you’ve guessed it) – Zhivago’s. But I think I’ve whetted my readers appetites enough already and so I’ll continue this love story with its heart rending and bowel turning pathos in my next instalment.

One more? Why not. What do a Rubik’s Cube and a prick have in common? The more you play with it the harder it gets.

 Now a bird never flew on one wing. Define egghead: What Mrs Dumpty givers Humpty.

What has four legs and flies?

A dead horse.

….. Sick or what?

 For too long our two countries have been divided by antagonisms which have often been mischievously amplified by people in Ireland. The forthcoming royal visit is an opportunity to turn the swords of the past into the ploughshares of the present and the scythes of the future, with which future generations can reap a bountiful harvest of goodwill and renewed dependency on our bigger neighbour.

 Those in Cavan will be especially pleased to hear that their local authority, Cavan County Council, had been working flat out behind the4 scenes to see to it that The Queen visited “The Lakeland County” and that she is given, along with the Duke of Edinburgh, an opportunity to fulfil a long-held ambition.

 It is not generally known but Queen Elizabeth had planned to make a visit to Cavan County Museum during her visit. Both she and Prince Philip were anxious to look at the museum’s unique collection of Gaelic football boots and assorted Cavan GAA memorabilia. A source close to the royal family has stated that each time anyone mentions the memorable victory of Cavan over Kerry in New York’s Polo Grounds her mind goes back to the year 1947 and the royal wedding of that year.

 It has now emerged that her visit to the museum has had to be cancelled because of an old problem in the museum: the lavatories. In spite of having a plumber’s son on staff for a number of years the museum’s toilets have a nasty habit of exploding for no reason and shooting their contents over a wide area.  It was thought this was caused by attempts to flush down diapers, tampons used condoms and certainly the problem seemed to have been resolved by a number of low-key redundancies disguised as budget cuts. Unfortunately the overflowing lavatories have returned with a vengeance, with fateful results.  

 A County Council engineer explained.

 “It would be the very day her Majesty would be comin’ that the hoors would blow up again like yan Icelandic volcano, an’ ya can get the whiff of the shite for miles an’ miles. I wouldn’t be surprised if ya got it up in a ‘plane. An’ when that happens the last thing ya want is t’ have the quain of England cuntin’ around lookin’ to go to the jacks.”

 Some in Cavan had hoped that The Queen, given her interest in Gaelic Games, would have an opportunity to present the Anglo-Celt cup to a successful Cavan team, but this can’t happen now after the Cavan team threw up their arses down in Cork last weekend – four shagging points; Jesus the North Koreans would have done better.

 Anglo Celt and The Beano please copy

I’m sure there are many local government employees who know only too well the type of people I’m talking about. After all, when they”re on one of those five-star junkets paid for by the tax payer, away from their wives, girlfriends and partners, it can get pretty lonely, can’t it … but don’t worry, your secrets are safe with me.