Lick&Spittle Spat

“Look it here a minute, this isn’t even my gig, Mr Ed!” (I said).

“Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth,” says he. (See what I did there?) [No – Ed.]

Anyhow, ’tis Lick&Spittle who is i mbun the guest column (or colyum as muintir Mheicsiceo would pronounce it) today because, after the return of Dear Leader, one would have thought that a semblance of normality might prevail, but the chance of that happening could be considered exaggerated, bloated or simply fat.

Since Content Provider (definite article omitted to give Mr Ed some work to do!) returned, instead of being welcomed with open aromas back to the hacienda, rather ’tis the case that, before he unpacked his case, Legal were all over his case like Lough Neagh flies round a dead eel, to bring a case against him for negligence in the line of duty, in case he might think his absence went unnoticed, or that he had got, gat or gotten away as free as one of Nicola Sturgeon’s chaps. (All this talk of fish suppers is making me hungry, so it is.)

So, with Mr Ed busy editing the legal documents, after rescuing same from the Ph3 students who had been about to roll them into a gargantuan spliff of the best weed Moneyglass can buy (which doesn’t really set the closed-for-Corona-time bar very high) the lot fell to Matthias to guestblog the day, but no-one could find said disciple, or even remember having met him (although Mr Ed said he heard a boy in his former place of pre-Kerfuffle and virtually foreseeable future work, in Carryon Key, intimate that a German fellow by the name of Matthias had been locked into the firm’s warehouse (there house!) in Mollusc, before the lockdown. [No idea what he is on about either, or on – Ed.]

With aforementioned Teuton unaccounted for then, sub-editors Lick&Spittle were dragged kicking and screaming off the bench. Because of sociopathic distancing, however, only 50% of the Day-Dream Team that is Lick&Spittle was actually match-fit when it hit the ground running, which was in itself a sight to behold, as the good people of Duneane had never before witnessed a ground running, never mind one being hit. [I’ve seen a fruit fly, though – Ed.] With the match-fit partner being out of WiFi and HiFi range in his tree house perched upon the yew tree at the head of the beach [Newry – Ed.], however, the misfit of the partnership was handed the baton.

Now, a baton is a perfectly useful prop for a conductor to scare an orchestra with, or for a relay runner to drop so that his insider laybet on Betfair comes off, but it’s as handy as mammaries on yer proverbial boar for till write a blog with. So, armed with nothing but a virtual ogham slab, I was tasked with being the temporary and one-morning-only chronicler of Ballyraymond until such times as Mr Ed gets his sheets together.

Speaking of Mr Ed, when he does his tonic for the troops and addresses the nation that is Moneynick, it has come to the attention of the assembled body and bodies that he sometimes sucks soothingly on a cigarette. Now, he has referred elsewhere in these pages to his attempts at giving up said monastic habit, and has even succeeded admirably during the hours of sleep. As a recovering smokaholic, I know that giving up smoking is incredibly easy, however, having done so hundreds of times myself. In fact, I ashamedly consider myself a failed rather than a recovering smoker since, despite having served my time on the Silk Cut Road since my teenage years and having been Regaled with tales of fegs putting hairs on yer chest and having inhaled a few Benson burners between the Hedges, my attempts at becoming an addict went up in veritable and actual smoke. But I digress! Since the days of Cockup 19 and lockdown it has fallen upon Mr Ed to rally his Teams by Zooming his visage to us along the etherwobbles. It strikes me then, when watching him light up, that while a fellow could smoke in the precovidian era and his unfortunate neighbour might passively hang off his tobacco coat tails (or indeed perhaps it would be a happy fault if said neighbour were an addict his or herself or themself, and simply couldn’t afford said habit and could not envisage ever kicking it, not being of a violent disposition) that virtual passive smoking is a pastime that could be recommended to the masses (and indeed, at least during the present virtual prayer-time to the Masses) since, surely, it soothes the soul to gaze upon a lad or lass in smoke-aroused ecstasy when he or she is harming no one but himself or herself or themselves and their cat or gerbil. Nay, I go further, m’Lud, if someone were of a sadistic or psychopathic disposition, he or she or they might revel in the knowledge that the dude or dudette or dudtems they watched on their ’puter screen, draining the nicotine stick, was possibly sending him, her or themselves to an early grave or urn of ashes (the latter of said possibilities surely awakening some ironic feelings in even the most moronic of us?) [There seems to be some confusion in what I will charitably call the present writer’s mind between the two wholly separate personages of Content Provider and Ed. Just can’t get the staff in these PC days – Ed.]

Speaking of morons. [Watch it! There’s a door handy there, son! – Ed.] Did ye see thon fella in Downer Street who has allegedly recovered from the groana virus himself trying to tell the rest of us how not to get it? Stay at home, says he, but go to work and work from home if you don’t have a job to go to, and cycle to work unless you have a car in which case leave it at home and take the bus, unless there is another passenger already on it, or a driver, or a conductor (in which case you’re probably on the wrong bus, or wrong century) and wear a mask but don’t take it off with your gloves on, and don’t wear any gloves, and don’t go near anybody except for strangers whom you can approach, and then withdraw to a remove of two metres from, but stay away from your relatives, the old ones can be particularly dangerous and nasty.

By the way, has anyone seen my Ma? It’s her birthday. Happy birthday, Ma. [That was yesterday – Ed.] And walk everywhere, which isn’t very considerate to the rest of us who haven’t a leg to stand on.

[Note: due to the amount of editing required to get this guest blog to publishable standard, I will be taking tomorrow off – Ed.]