From The Archives

My great, great grandfather,  Horace Boatfudge, was a prominent feature in Dublin society.  He wrote a weekly column for The Irish Times, called The Pertinent Gent.

February 4th 1904, The Boat Is Sinking Fast

I awake this morning with serious malady, dear readers. Head throbbing, as if someone was reenacting The Boer War in my temporal lobe.  I’d been invited to a soiree the previous evening at the Royal Zoological gardens, at the behest of my VBA* Sir Clement Fipplecroft.  Clement had recently taken delivery of a new pachyderm, a male called Gaja, and gathered the who’s who of Dublin society to celebrate.  I took an early tea in the Gresham with chums Belvedere “Belvo” Rockclimb And Richard “The Cooker” Cook.  The other members of the infamous Sackville Seven had cried off,  Edward Waltoncake by way of a telegram, citing an aggravation of his gout from a particularly truculent game of rugger the previous weekend.  Hipflasks filled, we made our way to a Hansom Cab for the long commute to the Phoenix park...

Halfway up the quays, the smell of hops from that place that brews that horrible black tonic of the working classes hits Belvo’s nose like a shot from a Webley & Scott and he turns green. He demands that the carriage come to an immediate halt, and flops out onto the street,  promptly depositing some partially digested roast beef and sherry all over his rather fetching new pair of boots and matching gaiters (4 and 6d from Mervyn’s of Berkeley road).  The carriage driver,  a rather stern chap of grimy facade, informed us that he would be most displeased to continue the transit with our under par companion, but on removal of my rather corpulent wallet from the breast pocket of my great coat (Brown Thomas, a steal at 11 pounds.), my offer of additional financial appeasement soon soothed his qualms.

            We alighted the carriage around nine, where Sir Clement had prepared a most lavish display in the rose garden behind Haughton House.  While Belvo and the Cooker took full advantage of the imbibations on offer, Clement insisted, absolutely insisted, that I go for a ride on Gaja.  I was more than happy to do so.  My former paramour, Evelyn Wanklefont, was also at the party, and I feared that in my intoxicated state, a lustful glance from Ms. Wanklefont would prompt a brief tryst by the Giraffe enclosure, and a self administered dose of penicillin come morningtime.  After being helped onto the elephant’s back, Sir Clement providing an accomodating but rather inappropriate push to my posterior, off I went for what I hoped would be a jolly jaunt around the grounds.

            Unfortunately, Gaja galloped off like a disobliging locomotive, and by the time the elephant had been sufficiently tranquillised by the zookeepers, he’d trampled all over the night’s merriment. Thankfully, none of the guests were harmed, though Belvo’s carelessly discarded hat (4 pounds from Taylor’s of Ely Place) was irretrievably mangled under Gaja’s considerable hindquarters.

The rest of the evening remains fuzzy as I lie in bed probing my pain addled brain, but i’m sure that a good evening’s sport was had by all.  The door to my adjacent water closet has just opened, and Evelyn appears, flushed of face and swathed in my burgundy robe.  I fear, dear readers, that I may need that penicillin after all.

                                                                                                                        HB

VBA – Very best Acquaintance

Myself, Sir Clement and assorted cohorts with Gaja the elephant.

Galaxy's quest

“Oh look at her there, swanning around in her lovely frock”

“Oh look at her there, swanning around in her lovely frock”

Name:  Darius Boots

Occupation: Senior Judge – Australia’s next top model.

I’m in a taxi on my way from the airport, bonded to my seat by the marriage of sweaty clothes and fake leather upholstery.  It’s so hot that small animals are in danger of combusting (particularly dehydrated ones, they wouldn’t have a prayer) , and the once freezing bottle of water is threatening to boil over in my hand. 

I’m here in Sydney, home to Australians and Irish people looking to piss away a year getting locked.  Australia’s Next Top Model has, much like it’s global siblings, become a phenomenon,  with throngs of young Aussie ladies lining up around the block for a chance to be ridiculed on TV by “experts”, who claim to know all about ‘fashion” . One such “expert” is Darius Boots.  Nicknamed “The Gold Duchess”, possibly because of his wealth, definitely because of his tiara, Boots holds the dreams of so many in his lovely soft hands.  I know that they’re soft cause I shake one when I meet him, during a break in filming on the Models set. We sit on folding chairs in the corner, while the crew bustle about. He removes his high heeled converse shoes, custom made, and folds his legs like a yoga ninja.   Dance music is played loudly over speakers, but still the hissing is audible.

            Hissing.  From the swans.  Australia’s Next Top Model has  gone “Avian Chic(k)”, a phrase that Darius coined himself in two hours.  Knowing that I am from Ireland, Boots tells me that Ireland’s recent economic woes became a major catalyst for the show’s new direction.

“Well , it’s like this mate, ever since your country’s gone in the financial dunny,  people have had to be careful with their money.  They’ve cut back on the luxurys, the second car, the skiing holidays, teeth bleaching, all that stuff.  They’ve also had to curb their grocery budget.  No more organic cornflakes, no more probiotic chocolate spread. And with loaves of bread, every slice counts.  So no one feeds bread to the swans anymore.  And Miss Swan, what can she do? She can’t go to a supermarket, she hasn’t got a credit card.  Emigration is the only way forward. So they come here, where there’s nice weather and loads of, you know, bread. “

Darius spends the next five minutes on the virtues of using swans as models, their “Poise”, “Elegance”, “Natural confidence in front of a camera” and ”big long bloody necks that look great with or without jewellery”.

“I mean, look at Saoirse over there, he says, pointing to a tall cygnet wearing a cowboy hat and a kimono.  “There’s no way anyone should be able to pull that look off, but she makes it...”  He pauses to drink from a bottle of Avian (Specially packaged bottles to tie in with the show). “…Work.  And it shouldn’t work.  American and Japanese cultures brought together in a way that economic rivalries could never allow.”

I ask Darius if there’s a negativity to using swans as models.

“Oh absolutely mate.  The biggest problems are with dress straps.  No bloody shoulders on swans is there?  You put a swan in a strappy dress, I guarantee it’ll come off on the catwalk, and before you know it, she’s trod on the edge of it and gone arse over beak in front of the judges.  We had to stop doing any live broadcasts cause of all the tumbles, that and the way that they tend to shit everywhere whether there’s a camera on or not.”

A floor manager sidles up to Darius, tapping his watch. 

“Sorry mate, we gotta get filming, nice to meet you.”

I have one more question for Darius, before he returns to the set.  I inquire about why his other arm is in a cast, suspended by a leather and diamante sling.

“Oh, that was from Grainne.  I commented that she needed to shed some excess feathers, and the bitch hit me with her wing.  Who knew that a swan could break your arm?”

Hmm.  Everyone knows that.

Pictured: Savannah takes offence when the photographer asks her to stop pouting

Ten People Who’ve Had Jobs

-JFK.

-The Pope.

-Packie Bonner.

-Santa.

-Bosco.

-One half of Jedward.

-The other half of Jedward.

-Optimus Prime’s yoga teacher (Really, I’m interviewing her shortly)

-That guy who Colin Firth played in that film.

-The milkman who delivered to the house that I grew up in.

Protecting Our Protectors

Name: Maura Wallcrisp (Welfare Woman)

Occupation:  Superhero Community Welfare Officer.

My ticket says that i’m next in the queue.  The waiting area is empty, save for one other, who’s being a bit of a show off by levitating when there’s no shortage of seats. The clock flashes my ticket number and the floating man fixes me filthies.  “Build a bridge and get over it” I thought, which he could probably do quite easily, being able to overcome gravity with such ease.

            Maura (not her real name) offers me a  hand, out through a slot in the glass screen which divides us.  “The screen must make the whole thing impersonal”, i tell her. “Well, it’s an important part of the process, replies  Maura, her pale eyes peering at me from behind a facemask .  “Most of the folks i see here are decent enough, but you get the odd irate intergalactic defender with laser vision and believe me, that’s when you’re glad that this screen is impervious to everything but shards of Trastusian rock from the Basken Nebula.”

            Maire tells me the ins and outs of her job, assessing claims from local area superheroes and villians applying for benefits. “I suppose the biggest query i have here is for medical benefit, which is rerely granted to be honest.”  “Why’s that?” i ask her.  “75 percent of the applicants are either immortal or impervious to weapons and disease. And why would you waste time at a doctors when you have no pulse?”  Good point there.

            “We also process claims for rent allowance.  I’m sad to say, but you get some awful sob stories in here.  Captain Spectrum was in here the other week, the poor guy can save Europe from an alien invasion, but can’t keep the landlord off his back.” Remembering a recent TV3 documentary about dole fraud, i asked Maura if this was a common occurance among the superpowered.

“Oh absolutely Finn.  General Fear was in to me looking for rent allowance on his three bed semi in Terenure, forgetting to mention that he owns a seven mile wide sky fortress hovering over Washington DC.”

            And with that, my ten minutes are up. I thank Maura for her time, then make for the exit, an ultraspeed escape pod and underground tunnel. I’d have been happy to take the stairs.

Jobs.  They’re only smashing.  Hey kids, what do you want to be when you grow up. “I wanna be an actress”! “ I want to be a rock star”! I want to be a policeman”!

“I want to be a doctor”!  “I want to cut the grass on that big roundabout outside town’! Okay, so the last one won’t be found in most kid’s dreams, but it’s as important as most other jobs. What would happen if no one cut the grass on the big roundabout? It’d get all overgrown, the grass would spill out onto the road, cars would skid all over the place (you can’t put soccer boots on cars, they won’t fit conventional tyres).   It begs the question, who does all these obscure fuckin jobs? Who leaves the house five mornings a week to put in a nine hour stint  testing the weight resistance of toilet seats ?  Who pays tax on wages earned from installing cat flaps on back doors?  Who’s upped their game at the office, knowing that  a promotion could be imminent, and the chance to graduate from a junior vomit inducer to a senior vomit inducer is too good to pass up? Who is charged with the task of tracking down the dudes ( and it probably is all men) too lazy to rinse out their recyclables before binning?