Ciaran’s Peculier [sic] Blog

The Fine Gael party has finally chosen a candidate for the presidency. I suppose he was the best of a really bad lot. Gay (by name, not by lifestyle choice) Mitchell came out of the selection convention yesterday. Mr Mitchell has denied claims that he wants to make the Aras into a sanctuary for penguins, claiming there’s lready a zoo in Phoenix Park..

Mairead Magennis was truly embarrassing with her continued emphasis on getting a blue … Fine Gael person into the presidency. It was about time that there was a Fine Gael President she intoned. This was unseemly. The holder of the office of president must be above narrow party politics and would be best to be a truly independent figure. The president must represent all sections of the Irish population, not just one particular patronage group. She spoke of the presidential office as if it were no more than the chairmanship of a town council or a Vocational Education Committee in Co. Leitrim. I think the success of Fine Gael in the last elections have gone to their head. I honestly think that had Mairead got the nod and (God preserve us) been elected, the Aras would have been painted blue on the inside and outside. Her candidacy was inspired by a desire to have someone who had been on television and in the public eue torival Sean Gallagher, but the FGers got their fingers burnt before – remember the George Lee fiasco, and Mairead was all they could get after Bunny Carr’s refusal to seek the nomination.

And then there was Pat Cox. His candidacy would have appealed, it was hoped, to all the political parties he has been a member of. He started out with Fianna Fail, then jumped ship to the Progressive Democrats became an independent when they disintegrated and now he’s with the Blueshirts. The only problem is that Pat is an incredibly arrogant and self-opinionated person who has insulted people in every political organisation of which he has been a member. I can’t really have imagined Cox asking anyone for a vote. Instead he would have responded to any erstwhile offers of support with a sneering “and why should I accept a vote from you?”  His political future now looks bleak. However his surname may save him. With a name like Cox he had to be a sexpert like his namesake Tracy Had he been elected certain figures in the porn industry like Hugh Heffner and Ben Dover would have had a field day. It has emerged that  anonymous backers of Cox planned to turn  into a clinic for all sorts of men’s problems from gonorrhoea to premature ejaculation, as well as a venue for seminars on how to give your woman satisfaction, in which he might be assisted by a pal from his PD days, Mary Harney.

Isn’t it a shame that they held the auditions on a Sunday, that way making sure no Protestant could put their head up.