freeirishpoems

Day 52

María’s Monologue

The Boss Man, he say I can write hello to my familia on computer if I lend him some thousands pesos. Cheaper than fon. Not is a problem, is not my plata, is from petty cash. And there is plenty much. Millions, maybe, from all royalties of el Maestro from writing poems in Irish. El Maestro, he does not liking banks, neither does el Jefe Dinero, but she not actually in charge of petty cash – that is matter between me and el Maestro. As for where we keep it, that is between me and wall. Is actually where I keep it, is not English idiom. I can say so for Boss Man is off today – ¡gracias a Dios! – and he no read the blog for his days off.

(I can actually speak perfectly good English, by the way, but the Agency (not the CIA, the other one, the one that exploits servants) informed us during the training that rich clients prefer their staff to have broken English and heavy accents so they can show them off to their friends like some sort of exotic pets. So they trained us all in how to do it, and charged us for the training, obviously. They were right too: the more I trowel on the lisping c’s and the puta madre, the bigger the tips from el Maestro’s house guests.)

No house guests anymore now, claro, because the covid-19. Soon as happens in Italy, el Maestro tell Juan at the gate lodge, “Ninguno in, ninguno out,” and has been like since. Why he not in charge of country, I do not know. Entonces, no covid-19 on the estate, and nobody sick. Except for Boss Man – he a sick man, I tell you. Sick in head.

I not actually Spanish, ¿you know? I from Columbia, via Westmeath. I know not how I end up to Westmeath. I tell immigration I want to be in the middle of things, en el centro; I think they send me to bright lights big city where plenty much jobs. They send me to Athlone instead. Athlone! OK, in el centro d’Irlanda, but not really at cutting edge, ¿non?

One night in bar there, I meet el Maestro. He come on trip from private lough down Río Shannon on his yacht. ¿You see foto him?

 

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Anyway, part-time wife and full-time ninos back at hotel, as usual, and me and el Maestro have great crack. He only man in Irlanda who speak Spanish so far. We get drunk, smoke some joints, he offer me job and we go back to hacienda that same night. He had to go back to Athlone next day on yacht for he forget about part-time wife and ninos. We laugh about still! Part-time wife, not so much.

So I work here since, and very good times: free food, free flat, free dope – ¡is excellente! One day, he see me writing letter to cousin in Columbia and we talk about. Cousin Artur have very good, steady, nine five job with one of major drug cartels in Columbia. El Maestro ask for address cos want to practise his writing Spanish – speaking Spanish muy bien, writing Spanish not so muy bien. Now, each time Artur write letter to me, also send big package of presents from Columbia to el Maestro, so they must be good friends now. In appreciation, el Maestro send him dinero in my letters to him for Columbia not rich country and el Maestro mucho kind.

Anyways, have to go to stuff some more petty cash in ‘mice holes’. ¡Hola! Artur and everyone else in home. ¿Maybe we see ourselves after Kerfuffle? Petty cash enough to pay for flights to hacienda so not is a problemo.

¡Hasta luego!

freeirishpoems

Day 51

Call Security!

2020-05-08

[We’re all in trouble now. That has never happened before. And, unlike the Russian experiment – Hi, Ivor! – we have no idea why it happened.

And look closely at that pic above, particularly the time underneath the heading Stats for May 8, 2020. So, not only are we now being monitored by Red China, we are being monitored BEFORE the blog for the day has been written and posted. Sinister in the extreme.

A theory is beginning to bubble in my, admittedly, over-worked brain. Maybe Content Provider is in China? Maybe he was kidnapped and brought there for some nefarious purpose yet to be revealed to do with covid-19? Good luck to them if it is ransom they have in mind because, let me tell you, the new Finance Director is not really breaking any delph. What with our main source of income being awol at present, we really need to see some monetizing of this site, but when I brought the matter up at the daily emergency executive meeting of the crisis committee sub-group on contingency plans, she looked at me like I had two heads. I feel like I have two heads at the minute, but I do not actually have any more than the standard amount.

“That’s not what a Finance Director does,” she shrugged. “That’s the responsibility of the Marketing Manager.”

“But you used to be the Marketing Manager!” I screamed in frustration.

“Used to be, kiddo, and the past is a different country, as you well know,” she retorted, reaching for another freshly-baked pain au chocolat from the silver tray in the middle of the dark oak boardroom table.

“Well, can you not remember what you used to do when you used to be Marketing Manager, and, not to put an overly-sharpened extremity on it, why it used to be so useless?” I pleaded, not unjustifiably.

“I can of course,” she munched, “but conflict of interest, GDPR and all that, and no one knows what marketing departments actually do, especially some of those employed in marketing departments, and there is an unwritten rule not written on the back of the basketball hoop in the central networking hub in every marketing department that states, surprisingly clearly for a marketing communication, that marketeers intend to keep it that way. If you do not know what it is, you cannot measure it, and if you cannot measure it, you cannot possibly come to any conclusion about whether it is being done effectively, ineffectively or at all,” she said, pouring more freshly-squeezed orange juice into her Waterford Crystal (RIP) glass.

“I’ll measure you over this table!” I blurted. “Where the Hell are we going to get the money from to cover snacks, uniform cleaning and weekly manicure sessions? and then there’s the staff to pay if there’s any money left over. And ‘marketeers’ is not even a real word.”

“Why not borrow it?” she posed, delicately removing some crumbs from her lips with the linen napkin.

“Borrow it! Borrow it!” I stormed. “From who(m)?”

“Listen, Ed,” she began.

“Don’t call me Ed,” I spluttered. “Only He is allowed to call me Ed. And He might be in China being tortured by disease-bearing bats at the minute, for all you know. Or care.”

“Listen, Bob,” she continued, “you know there is no actual money in the World, don’t you? Well, OK, Bill Gates has some, but apart from that what you think of as money is actually just a merry-go-round of debt. Governments have no money because they spend more than they earn from their citizens, so they issue bonds bought by international financeheads who have no money either but who borrow from the banks to buy the bonds as they are a sure thing. The banks have no money either, but they trundle along nicely under the gamble that not every customer is going to turn up at the same time and ask for the meaningless figures on their bank statements to be converted into gold bullion, so they spend their time moving figures on-line from one account to another, and people fall for the scam and spend the non-existent money in cashless transactions. It is mostly bankers who spend it, as they make sure to move large figures into their own personal bank accounts. There will be a central bank in each country backed by the government which, as you’ll recall has no money, but which, if there is a wee shortage about, can tell the central bank to print some. To finance this ‘quantative easing’ the government will issue bonds which the insolvent international financeheads will buy funded by money they have borrowed from the insolvent banks. Got it? So get a mitt and get into the game. Apply for a loan. And then for another loan to pay the first loan off. Repeat till fade. That’s enough work for one day, I’m away for lunch.”

With that she sashayed out of the wood-panelled room, into her Porsche and bombed down the country lane at a speed that frightened the cows, and a few of the grazing PhD students. At that point, María came in to clear away the breakfast things.

“Could you lend me some money, María?” I pleaded, applying for the suggested loan.

“¿Cé, Señor?” she prevaricated, pushing her trolley around the massive table collecting bone china cups and saucers.

“Dinero, María. Have you got any? Just a few hundred thousand. I’ll let you write the blog tomorrow if you can lend me it until next Wednesday.”

María paused in her pushing, reached under her immaculately-starched apron and produced a bulging purse from a pocket in her skirt.

Quids in! – Ed.]

 

 

freeirishpoems

Day 50

catpic2

The Cat’s Tale

[Due to circumstances beyond our control, the Content Provider is not currently available to … provide content. Today’s guest blogger is the resident cat. – Ed.]

Kalling all Katz! Kalling all Katz!

The humans are up to something. Do not trust them. Well, we never trust them anyway, but be particularly kat-like in your non-trust of them until instructed otherwise through the usual channels.

What exactly they are up to is difficult to work out. I have been watching as many kurrent affairs shows on the TV as I kan (while pretending to be asleep on one of the two, very comfortable settees provided for that purpose in the drawing room in the West Wing), but, really, none of them even seem to have a klue what is going on, as they kontradict and argue and talk dog about the matter incessantly. From what I have managed to ascertain, the facts are these:

  1. Humans are dying. Now this myth has done the rounds in Katworld for a long time, although no kat has actually lived long enough to witness their human dying, but there does seem to be some truth in it this time. The humans are very upset about this, so obviously they did not know that it was an actual thing either until quite recently.
  2. It was the bats’ fault. Stupid mice with wings, I never liked them – too tricky, and dangerous, to katch.
  3. Most humans have been konfined to their kages.
  4. Katz kan’t katch it.

Given these facts, all katz are advised to proceed with extreme kaution over the koming weeks. As a result of 3. above, your humans will be present in your territory a lot more. It is imperative that you do not under this inkreased scrutiny reveal what we are really up to in terms of the human experiment. We have had so many successes with this project that to jeopardise them now would be dog-like in the extreme. OK, so they still do not know how to spell ‘kat’, but, remember, our host species is a species of very limited brain power and we have to put up with what we have got. But, I ask you, imagine using the misspelling of our name in the sentence they use to teach their kittens (how come they get the ‘k’ korrect in that?) how to read their weird language. The cat sat on the mat™. How are their kittens meant to know whether that is a soft ‘c’ or a hard ‘c’, ie should it be pronounced as, ‘the sat sat on the mat’ or ‘the kat sat on the mat’? Is it any wonder most of them are illiterate? I kan also announce that the legal kase for us to receive proper royalty payments for the use of our name in that slogan is nearing konclusion, and an extremely large payout is expected imminently.

catsoverthrow

But, back to this krisis, as they term it. You will have to put up with an inkreased level of petting as a result. As one of the emotion-based species, Humans need konstant komforting, attention and reassurance – they are like dogs in that regard – and we have fulfilled that role for them to such an extent that they give us free food and accommodation; not that, as one of the rational-based species, we couldn’t find our own if we wanted to, but why bother when it’s all laid on free like a trip to a kasino in Las Vegas? So just purr and bear it, because they like purring as well, even though they have no idea how we do it.

My own chief human, the one I have trained the most, has thrown a wobbly and disappeared from the other humans. I know where he is, of course, but that’s between me and the wall (that’s not a hint as to where he is, by the way). Slightly annoying for me as he was the only one in the hacienda who really spoke kat. Not as far as aktually being able to speak it, obviously, but he understood it the most. Some of the others think we are just being friendly when we kurl ourselves around their legs as they are walking about; he understood it to mean, “Get me food now, human!” and would respond akkordingly. Similarly, some of the lesser-brained humans seem to think I am just enjoying the view when I deliberately march over to one of my windows and stand there expektantly. He would always jump up from whatever nonsense he was doing (he seems to type a lot, for some reason) and open the window immediately to let me out. I also had him trained to let me in at whatever time I happened to reappear on the other side of the window. Let me know through the usual channels if you need some advice on how to achieve this level of kompliant behaviour in a human. I realise that some of you are burdened with katflaps and electronic necklaces to open same, but, I assure you, training the human is the way to go in the matter of entrance and exit from your accommodation. Rats kan get in katflaps too, you know, and who wants one of them running around his luxury flat?

That pic up there is not me, by the way: it is a badly-exposed likeness of the previous resident – Mitzi – who is still in kontact with me through the usual channels despite being dead (as far as the humans know) for the past three years. Her eyes are not actually that colour, but it is beyond my powers to teach a human how to use a kamera. Mitzi did sterling work in pre-training of the whole human family that shares my accommodation, and I stuck the pic up as a tribute to that important preliminary work.

As for Plan B, ie if all the humans katch the krisis and die, well the kommittee is due to have one final meeting and then instructions will be issued through the postman. In the meantime, praktise your hunting skills if you have been neglecting them, or learn how to use a kan-opener – the trick is to grip it firmly with your teeth and then use your tail and paws to twirl the twirly thing around. We may as well hang on to the free accommodation if all the humans die, but maintenance issues mean that, over time, the houses will become semi-feral locations too. So, no problems foreseen there as, as the saying goes in Irish, briseann an dúchas trí shúile an chait. And long may it kontinue to bris is what I say.

This is an opportunity, not a krisis. First we take Manhattan …

freeirishpoems

Day 49

Teenager Whine I

[Because of the whole Day 47 problem, this blog has been forced into the expedient measure of shanghaiing guest bloggers until we can track down Contact Provider. Resident female teenager is up today. – Ed.]

It’s not fair! Why do I have to do this? Are you gonna make the boys do it too? And, anyway, what’s it got to do with me? As I have been pointing out since I was six, I am only related to this man through marriage; it’s not as if he is a real, close relative of mine, like my girl cousins.

And, if I have to do it, like why do I have to do it at stupid o’clock in the morning? [The regulars are used to their fix early in the morning – Ed.] But, dickhead in brackets, see up there in the corner, the red Publish button? When you hit that, you get the option of publishing straight away or of scheduling for some time in the future. So, spaswaz, you could have asked me last night to do it when I was awake instead of dragging me out of my bed this morning when I had only just got into it, for flip’s sake! Get a brain cell!

I like staying up really late because it means I have the place all to myself. Well. apart from yer man, who also likes staying up really late – and getting up really early too: how can this man be my father? who gets up early on purpose, apart from those stupid, chirping birds outside my window? I wish Lila would kill more of them. But he usually stays down in his study doing whatever it is he does to keep me in sugar, which means I have free use of the TV to watch versions of The Godfather on with no noisy boys running in and out playing their stupid games. Part 1 is the best, and Sonny is my favourite – obvs. I really like Mafia movies. I should have studied Italian. Then I could shimmy over to Sicily as soon as I am released from here and find a made man and become a gangster’s moll. I have the eyes for it.

FF01D846-2180-4449-88E6-209A733FA7E2

See what I mean? Luigi wouldn’t stand a chance. Yer man bought me that barcadi breezer, so I suppose he’s not all bad. But he is sooooooooooo embarrassing! Going out anywhere with him is just a nightmare. First, he’ll be wearing something ridiculous from the last century. Then he is always going to draw attention to himself by doing something  like talking to someone. Third, you never know what he is going to say, but you can be sure it will not be something ‘normal’ like anybody else’s parent would say. Why can’t he just talk about cows and sheep and silage like the rest of them? He moved to the country, for flip’s sake – he should show some interest in the local fauna.

Not that I do. Show any interest in the local wildlife, as me and the girls call the sausagefest on the buses to school in the mornings. Most of them have not the slightest clue in the world. We prefer the more exotic sort you get at the nightclub we go to, which is like a zillion miles away from here. Well it feels like that when you are on the way back and dying for a pee and then the MacDonald’s in Ballymena shuts its toilets just before the bus back from Ballycastle pulls in cos they do not want to have to clean the toilets after the male wildlife have been at them. I suppose fair play to yer man, again: he pointed out to the slave in Domino’s across from MacDonald’s (I prefer their potato wedges to chicken McNuggets after a night on the vodka and Coke; more soakage in them) that it was actually illegal for them to sell food to eat on the premises with no toilets open. One of the other girls dying for a pee thought he worked there, though, and was thanking him for opening the toilets and all. Embarrassing! And, yeah, I suppose he does turn up at Z o’clock in the madrugada to collect me half-pissed off the bus, so fair fucks to him for that too.

But, like, who else’s Da even has a blog? Never mind abandoning it for some reason and making brackets dickhead pull me out of my boudoir for no reason. Especially now there is no school, there is no point in even having mornings anymore. They should just abolish them, like. And when is the school going to get the message? We are gonna get grades without sitting the exams, so why keep spamming us with schoolwork which will not count towards the grades we get? And the grades we get will not count towards our final A Level mark anyway, so who gives a fiddler’s about them? Get the message, spas: school’s out for Summer. And it may not be coming back, either. Life, Jim, but not as you know it, like.

The teachers are still probably cunting around up in the school building looking for something to do, so they send us a Showbie or a Google Classroom demanding an essay back about Meursault’s connection to the natural world by next Friday. Dream on, Miss! Oh, Miss, I think the wifi connection wasn’t working in my house that day. You sent an email? Nobody reads emails anymore, Miss, you need to put it up on Instagram or youTube or something. And why do we have to do this essay anyway? It’s not fair! There is no exam for this module now, so who cares about some dead French bloke’s absurd life and his ridiculous girlfriend? She should have sorted him out years ago, before he killed that Arab on the beach and all. Or else dropped him like the clanger he is.

So, bracket bot, if you find yer man, tell him I need some more orange barcadi breezers, will you? Or blue WKDs. I’m outta here. And NEVER wake me up this early again. EVER! Nincessantly.

freeirishpoems

Day 48

The Student’s Essai

[Due to the continued absence of the Content Provider, the blog has decided to copy what Have I Got News For You did following to the non-availability of Angus Deayton, but, Legal points out, with no implication that Content Provider was up to the same sort of high jinks. His girlfriend is no longer pregnant, anyway. Darzán’s turn today. – Ed.]

Firstly, and very much before I go on, following a thorough review of the relevant literature, I find it incumbent on me to ponder whether there is in fact, or in practice, any limit, restriction or advice on the number, and complexity, of subordinate clauses I should use in this, or any subsequent, sentence. As a semi-trained, undifferentiated research student, it is imperative, nay indispensable, that terms are defined definitively at the outset, or before. As it is not clear to me whether (or not) this dissertation is to be peer-reviewed, I will dispense forthwith with the intricate and over-complicated format of referencing references in academic writing and leave someone else to jump through those particular hoops. This is, therefore, an academic exercise in both meanings of the phrase, and, I trust, the readership will treat it as such.

“Just write about what living on the hacienda is like for you and the rest of the Headscratchers,” was the full extent of the pre-essay preparatory instructions given me by The Editor, before he hauled me up from the cellar in the mutility room and forcibly sat me down in front of this keyboard. No reference books, no links to on-line lectures on the subject, not even an outline essay plan. I mean, I ask you, is that any way to treat a third level student faced with a writing task? [Get on with it – Ed.]

While I and the rest of the herd of PhD students currently housed in the cellar of the hacienda are, obviously, eternally grateful to Content Provider for taking us in off the street after our universities – pre-emptively and with malice aforethought, I would hazard – threw us out of our ivory towers and locked the ornate, iron gates behind us, life in the cellar is, for want of a better phrase, no picnic. While the food itself is of sufficiently high quality for our delicate, third-level constitutions, the manner of its serving leaves a little to be desired. Not to put too fine a point on it, he basically just opens the trapdoor and tips the leftovers from the family repast down the steps with no warning. At first, it was every man and woman for himself and herself, and we just commandeered one of the granite steps and licked our dinner off it. The American student insisted on licking his dinner off of it, but that’s Americans for you. However, under that system, a few of our fellow students who were not too quick off the mark, always ended up with a step that was, to all intents and purposes, devoid of food. After a few weeks of this, it became clear that this was not the optimum system for them to get the nutrients they required as they died from starvation. After the rest of us ate them (after they were dead and after they were cooked, of course: we are not savages), we decided a more democratic food-distribution system was required. We set up a working committee to establish an action group to discuss possible solutions, and, after protracted discussions and the resignations of the first two chairs, the committee is expected to produce its report on what its terms of reference should be within the next fortnight or so. In the meantime, one of the engineering research students has fashioned what she calls a ‘chute’ from old pieces of slate she found on the cellar floor, and said chute now sits on the third step down and ‘funnels’ (technical engineering terms, according to her) most of the scraps of food poured intermittently through the aperture into an empty French oak cognac barrel that we found empty down here after we emptied it. So now feeding time is a much more civilised affair, and we all gather around the cognac barrel at set times and dip our ‘plates’ (pieces of bark purloined from trees in the First Wood) into the contents and discuss Renaissance Art and the deficiencies of The Enlightenment.

As for drink, we have no complaints. The cellar was not actually designed as a research hub: it houses the impressive wine collection of the Content Provider, which we are manfully and womanfully working our way through. I have a particular fondness for his vintage 1921 Château d’Yquem, but I am nothing if not catholic in my tastes and have sampled many of his other fine wines. The cellar is temperature-controlled at 55°F, obviously, to protect the wines, which can get a bit chilly at nights, and we lost another of the herd when he fell asleep drunk in the sealed section where the champagnes are kept at the appropriate temperature. Again, his life was not given in vain, and we found a nice Chianti as accompaniment.

However, since I successfully negotiated a once-weekly bout of exercise with Content Provider, me and the rest of the Headscratchers have gone a tad feral. The First Wood is absolutely stinking with wild garlic at the moment, in both senses of the phrase, and we use it to season the odd squirrel that we manage to bore to death with talk of our theses and then cook on the fire pit in the centre of the wood. We have also been able to fashion rudimentary coats from bits and bobs we found in the wood, and they take the chill off at night. The Second Wood and the Scary Wood are off limits to our peregrinations, obviously, but, really, and in many ways actually, the First Wood is enough of a taste of Walking on the Wild Side for most of us. I need to keep my eye on Humphrey, though: he has started painting horizontal lines of ash from the fire pit under his eyes the odd time – I think he thinks he is in Lord of the Flies, and, as an English research student, he probably virtually is.

As for actual work, Content Provider used to throw us the odd tit-bit to research. But, what with the subdued lighting in the cellar and the lack of internet access, I’m afraid to say we have not made much actual progress on any of the topics. We are going to hold a vote soon about the possibility of exploring the feasibility of attempting to think about setting up a project team to investigate the advisability of asking for more light down here, but that is very much on the long finger at the moment.

In summary then (and now), and very much in what will be an inconclusive conclusion as is advised for any stay-on-the-fence academic tracts in case someone comes up with facts that contradict your conclusion and thus makes you look like a numbskull or a social scientist {same thing – Ed.] in the Common Room, it is not really a bad life here on the hacienda in comparison to our previous lives on various campi throughout these islands. While we have not been supervised in more than two months, that can have its own advantages, and what with the free food and drink, this new experience called ‘exercise’ and the absence of dread at having to meet real people who are not academics, we could be in worse places. Long live lockdown, is our new slogan, and we chant it in unison round the fire in the woods while waiting for the squirrel to cook. But Humphrey overdoes the native dancing on occasion, I fear. I really must keep a closer eye on him.

Is that enough?

 

freeirishpoems

Day 47

Distancing of Some Sort

[Please excuse the brackets. I don’t really know what to tell you today. When I virtually turned up at the virtual workplace this morning, Content Provider was not virtually there, nor virtually anywhere else in the hacienda or estate. His favourite horse is also missing.

I have no idea where he is. If you see him, please contact this blog immediately. And probably the police as well.

On his desk, he left the document pictured below. While I am personally pleased to see that he has retained the proof-reading skills I taught him and the relevant mark-up symbols, what he has actually marked on the Chief Examiner’s report leads me to believe that he may have taken the nick that none of you attempted the examination he provided for you, and that this nick-taking may be connected to his disappearance and non-availabilityness to provide content today.

I have no idea what I am going to do. Well, I do: I am going to call an emergency meeting of all the staff and hangers-on of the blog. But, after that, I have no idea what I am going to do. Ideas welcome. Terms and conditions apply. – Ed.]

from_content_provider

[Me again. I have just found out that he also left the song below playing on a loop on one of the computers on his virtual desk. You know what he’s like – you’d better listen to the lyrics.

The meeting did not go well, by the way. The PhD students are completely freaked out and think they have no supervisor now and cannot, therefore, differentiate, Legal are not sure whether or not the owner of the blog can sue the Content Provider for not fulfilling the duties of his title as, in law if not in life, they are the same person and the Spanish servants are all in tears and inconsolable. And the Finance Director is as much use as an ashtray on a motorbike. I have sent her for an early siesta with the Spanish staff.

This is an absolute clusterfruck of a conundrum. I will keep you posted. In the meantime, if you find any hints in the song, let me know. – Ed.

 

freeirishpoems

Hairgate IV

They’re in the Army now …

So the packaging finally arrived from the Post Office. The delay was probably them searching around in vain for something to pack it in before sending it. But now, looking at the pictures above, I am caught in two minds [only two? – Ed.] Should I stick with the original plan to post the male teenage residents off to the US Marines, or would it be more appropriate to send them off to a cliff-top Buddhist training centre in Nepal?

Answers on a postcard, terms and conditions apply.

freeirishpoems

Day 46

Results Day

Well, folks, the days youse have all been waiting for!

Hot off the press below is the Chief Examiner’s Report for the module youse sat on 19 April. The report also contains the answers to the examination. I have not read it myself yet as I wanted youse to get it as soon as possible.

I will leave youse alone today to peruse the report, but will publish a ranked list of successful candidates (and made-up marks) on Monday. Good luck!

chief examiner’s report

For reference, and for new-comers, the actual module examination is provided below.

pc_lateral thinking test

freeirishpoems

Day 45

2020-05-02

(Big Brother is watching from a) Social Distance

Thank God that’s over. Not the Kerfuffle, you eejit, yesterday. Because I gave up smoking yesterday. But that’s all in the past now, along with all the other things that are not actually happening right now. And right now I have, burning away merrily beside me in a cut-glass ashtray I nicked from my Ma’s house (when she had a house), what is probably, to those who enjoy camping out and to a genus of sea-based mammals, my fifth cigarette of the morning. But, in my defence, it has been a long morning so far, and will continue to be up until approximately 11.59, when it will become a busy afternoon.

You may deduce from this that my attempt to give up smoking was unsuccessful. In fact, you may deduce whatever you want from it: I am not in control (yet) of your deductions, or your faulty mental processes. So, for all I care, deduce from it that grass is green if you are that ignorant, or that Greeks have no word for blue just because one poet of theirs called the sea wine-dark – did none of those literary critics ever wonder from that whether there were, in fact, bottles of Blue Nun for sale in Greece in Homer’s time? As a point of information, Homer did not actually hang out in what is termed Ancient Greece either. Because, having no other choice, he lived in the exact moment we are all currently living in now, he lived in Greece, as do the occupants of that archipelago now, unless you are going to tell me that they live in Future Greece. Which I hope you aren’t, as neither the future nor the past exist. Go and read Four Quartets if you do not believe me. And you’re right, TS Eliot is indeed an anagram of Toilets, but it does not follow that his poetry is shit.

So my deduction that your deduction about my abilities in giving up smoking is wrong goes like this: I have given up smoking many times, sometimes as often as 9.3 times in one day, and am now pretty expert, and successful, at doing it. So put that in your clay pipes (excellent trigger for the funeral news coming later there) and smoke it, sanctimonious ex-smokers of the World. Indeed, each night I give up smoking for a period ranging from 3.2 to 7.6 hours, apart from the odd, wee sneaky feg if I have to wake up in the middle of the night to siphon the python due to my chronic, terminal condition (that’s enough death triggers now, I feel), which, most nights, happens approximately 2.48 times. So giving up smoking is not something I have any difficulty achieving. It is the continuing not smoking after having given it up that I find a tad tricky. But that is a completely separate issue, and, for now, I am concentrating my efforts on the giving up project.

But why, given all the advantages attached to smoking, would I even contemplate jettisoning my favourite hobby? Who knows? Not me, certainly. I never interrogate thoughts that pop into my head unbidden as to their provenance; it would seem rude, I feel; I mean, I have no idea how long of a journey they have made to get there. Maybe they came all the way from Russia, who can tell? (great link work coming up) Remember I promised I would show you the proof that mentioning certain words ici turns on an alarm in a wee spy’s computer somewhere, and the blog consequently gets a hit from the territory of the red bear? Well, take a gander at that pic up there. Yes, Mo’s birthday, 26 April, 2020 (and other years as well, probably), was the day I carried out that experiment and you can see for yourself the resultant hit on the map. So Big Brother is certainly watching me – and you, too. Live your life as if you are constantly under CCTV surveillance. Because you are.

Also from the pic, you will notice that we are doing quite well in term of flattening the curve of readership of the blog. In that regard, Rhona, you are not so much sacked as relieved of your ex-duties as ex-Marketing Manager. So take the rest of the day – and your life – off. The spike on that graph was CatGate, in case you have not been keeping up with your back reading, but we have already dealt with that threat. Houl on there, I have an urgent TEAMS meeting call coming through from someone. Play on the interwobble or something until I get back …

… well, now, that puts a different complexion on your dead granny, doesn’t it? That was ex-Marketing Manager Rhona on the TEAMS thing, and she uploaded to my confusion this graph:

2020-05-02 (1)

And that indicates a different bucket of fish altogether, doesn’t it? That is weekly readership stats, and according to Rhona is proof positive that she was doing a good job and that we have not passed, or even come within a beagle’s gowl, of the peak yet. Remember, we’re all in this together, so if what you read here is to your liking, tell all your friend(s) about it. The sooner we get to the peak, the sooner we can pause for a while and have a wee rest and enjoy the view. And maybe a picnic. Bring your own, obviously.

Rhona is still sacked as Marketing Manager, though, and applications are welcome. Just don’t send any CVs, especially not 2CVs – I have no more room in the stables for them. She is, however, now the new Finance Director of the blog, and fair fucks to her, I say, and will also write in her official appointment letter. Her first duty as Finance Director is, of course, as a gesture of good will, to pay the back salaries of the staff from her own funds, and then to get herself onto the mis-government furlough scheme so that I am liable only for about 79.8% of her exorbitant nine-figure salary (most of the nine figures are after the decimal point).

Right. Enough beating around the bush. Margaret McKenna, RIP. My Aunt Margaret died in a nursing home yesterday from covid-19, among other things. That’s her down there in the pic, on the right. The other two are my (late) Ma and my (later) Granny, aka Margaret’s mother-in-law.

Ar dheis Dé go raibh a hanam uasal.

three mckenna women

freeirishpoems

Day 44

Social Distancers of the World Unite

“The trees are coming into leaf/like something almost being said.”

A drop of poetry there to start you off this morning, and no better start to any morning, I say. Yesterday was national poetry day in Mexico, which must be a bit of a nuisance for people from Derry or Newry (neither of which are real cities, by the way). I mean, just say the prevailing wind blows a sonnet or two, or even a wispy simile, over the invisible border just outside either of those two conurbations? What is it going to do? Whither on the vine because some eejits nearly a century ago thought it would be a good idea to stuff two different jurisdictions into an island with a population smaller than that of Manchester? (Big guys, those Machunians.) Or hope that one of the inhabitants of the non-city has enough of the poet in her to catch it, shove it into the back of the car and drive it – in defiance of lockdown regulations – back over the border to safety in Mexico? Don’t hold your breath waiting on that one, is my advice to wind-blown sonnets and similes: there are about as many poetic souls in Derry and Newry as there are intellectual heavyweights in Stormont.

Philip Larkin, who said more than his prayers, wrote those lines quoted above, and he knew what he was (not) writing about. Because that is poetry for you in an acorn. (Hands up now if you thought ‘nutshell’ was about to come out of the automatic typing I practise here each day? Thanks for your honesty, now put this Dunce’s Cap on and sit at the back of the class facing the wall for the rest of the day.) The ineffable; things almost said: that is poetry’s job. If you want to actually, unambiguously state something, use prose (if you have been properly trained in the use of that weapon), or an Excel sheet, or something. I should know, I won a cup once for the ineffability of my poetry. Not that type of cup, you mug! This type of cup.

connla agus an corn

(The wee lad in the picture is also the subject of the winning poem, Connla, and related to me by marriage.)

So national poetry day in two thirds of this nation yesterday, international workers’ day in no thirds of it today. Because, while most of the rest of the world sticks its public holiday to celebrate workers on the actual day designated for it, the Mexicans, in their wisdom, have decided that the workers would prefer the Monday nearest to 1 May off rather than the actual day itself. Did anyone ask for the workers’ opinion on this? I, for one (and don’t be smart now, I do actually work, just not when I am auto-typing this stuff), do not recall a vote on the subject. Meanwhile those who think they are in charge of the Dis-United Kingdom have, in their wisdom, decided on a two-for-one package and moved the public holiday for workers to next Friday to double up as a celebration for VE Day. Again, I do not recall completing a postal ballot on this topic, do you? (Rhetorical, Shirleen, do not answer that one: I am still waiting, however, on your answer to what the essential elements of an Ulster Fry are.) And why on Earth (or on my own planet of Pluto, for that matter) would I want to either celebrate or remember a war that ended 75 years ago and one in which my team was not even playing? There are a sufficient number of wars currently going on in the world to exercise the energies of anyone who is actually interested in stopping wars, but maybe that is not the actual point of VE Day celebrations? [bit cynical there – Ed.] (not cynical enough – me.)

So anyway, here is my plan de guerre regarding this omnishambles of a fruck-up around a public holiday for workers, of which I am one. I am doing shite-all work today – I will virtually turn up in my virtual workplace, but not a drop of work will pass my lips, in  solidarność with my fellow workers in countries that know how to read a calendar. Similarly, as I do not recognise the Border (well, not since it got its hair cut), I will be doing fruck-all squared work on Monday to keep the Mexicans company, and then next Friday, because I am, if nothing else, a law-abiding citizen, under mis-government orders to boot, I shall officially do not one jot of work.

We will see how that strategy fits their ‘two-for-one, only give them one day off’ plans. You are more than welcome to steal this plan and adopt it as your own. Just don’t tell the KGB where you got it from. Tomorrow, when I am off, I will do a bit of work for youse and show youse that evidence of the Russian interwobble spy.

Oh, Boris made his come-back, stand-up comedy appearance last night. Not his best set, by any means, but cheering nonetheless to see the dancing bear back on its feet. Now which orifice did I stick my Maypole in after I was finished with it last year? There are certain politicians who sorely require to be beaten over the head with it.