Wednesday 29 November 2017

WINDSOR FAMILY WEDDING SAVES UK YET AGAIN



The announcement that Harry Windsor (Prince, 33) will marry Meghan Markle (Actress, 36) was greeted with gasps of relief in London, with Teresa May (Prime Minister, 61) leading the applause at a cabinet meeting.

“Just what we needed,” she exclaimed. “Something to wave a flag over and not have to worry about tomorrow and those pesky Europeans, who want big divorce money from us. Saved again. Three cheers for the Windsors!” As the cheers quietened, there was unanimity in action, for the first time in months, and an orderly queue for the post-meeting sandwiches, port and brandy.

Meanwhile, in Dublin, politicians, still reeling from the latest political crisis, bemoaned the fact that there is no Irish equivalent to the Windsors, though there are many wealthy developers who act royally and think they own the country. Just as the Windsors do, with their public subsidies and hidden, off-shore accounts.

The former Minister for Justice, Frances Fitzgerald (Former Tánaiste, 67), who failed to remember emails she received from someone who failed to remember sending them, emails so toxic they nearly tipped an already sickly parliamentary relationship into a deadly over dose, has been shuffled off to a hearty pension, in order to avoid an unseasonal governmental collapse and a general election.

Speaking outside Parliament buildings in Dublin, known as Leinster House, after the famous rugby team, one bereft Teachta Dála (TD, public representative, age and gender not given, but likely to be male and 45+), said

What’s the point of a republic if we can’t even get the team into the World Cup? Now that’s gone, we’re shagged. We’re short on the bread, big-time, because we gave it to the banks and they’re looking more. And we won’t even have a summer circus, watching the soccer team get bate in Russia. Even the Gah (GAA, sporting association, edging inexorably towards professionalism and oblivion, like rugby) is on a go-slow for the winter. Frances had to be given her walking papers. Like, who wants to be banging on a door in the middle of a sleety nowhere, looking for a vote from a frozen aul' fella who hasn’t seen you since the last time and who’s so far gone with isolation, poverty and the cold that he thinks you’re Michael Collins. And do you wise him up? Do you, me arse.”

The Chinese International Bunting and Flag Corporation announced a hike in its share price and a cut in workers’ wages, assuring share holders that, with big orders expected for Union Jacks, red, white and blue bunting and Kiss Me Quick hats, with images of either Harry Windsor or Meghan Markle on the hat-band, the corporation plans to accelerate its programme of throwing workers off the roofs of their campuses (aka factories) and replacing them with robots.

A spokesperson said: “We’ve swopped the green, white and orange line over to red, white and blue. Production of tricolours will be ceased as Italy and Ireland will not be going to Russia. We’ve moved all lines onto red, white and blue.”

Meanwhile, back at Kensington Palace, London, the newly engaged couple set up home in the modest (sic!) Nottingham Cottage, called after a county which the Windsor family effectively own, as part of the legacy left to them by a former sheriff and his dastardly cronies. The people of Nottinghamshire are said to have mixed feelings about this address. Some feel it should be in Nottingham and have called for a name change. Others are glad to be well away from the whole flamfew.

Harry Windsor’s grandmother, Elizabeth the Second (Queen, dog and horse lover, matriarch of the Firm, 91) is reportedly delighted by the news that Harry, known as a bit of a lad who enjoyed dressing up in Nazi and other uniforms, may be settling down. She is said not to be disturbed by the fact that her grandson’s intended has been described as having an ‘exotic’ background, because she is a woman, an actress, of mixed race and most exotic of all, American. The feisty grandmother expressed her delight at the news and had only one concern. She asked “Does this mean we’ll have to invite that awful man with the big hair and the wandering hands? No, I don’t mean him. I mean the other buffoon, the one with the twang.”

A Windsor family spokesperson assured Elizabeth the Second, and the wider public, that the wedding guest list will be tightly scrutinised and no one with dubious associations will be invited, apart perhaps from a few sheiks with orders pending for jet bombers from companies in which the Windsor family has interests.

The spokesperson responded to critical reports that Meghan Markle will have to give up her career as an actress when she gets married as an unfair and old fashioned way to treat a woman today, saying that those reports were untrue.

Of course, she will continue her career as an actress,” said the Windsor family spokesperson, “only now it will be as eye-candy in the Windsor family celebrity soap opera, which is essentially a cross between Dallas and the jungle celebrity shows where MM, as we now fondly know her, will get to do nasty things, like hang out with starving children and war victims, though not in Gaza or Yemen, if you don’t mind.”

Meanwhile, back in Dublin, now that the threat of a Christmas election has been seen off, a secret Dáil committee has begun meeting to come up with a wedding that would command similar powers of popular distraction, as the fumble to Brexiticide accelerates.  They are also investigating Meghan Markle's alleged Irish roots. One notion under consideration is an exhumation of the corpses of Queen Maeve and Brian Boru, with a jamboree nuptial beside the sturdy phallic stone, Lia Fáil, atop the hill of Tara.

Can’t wait.






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Monday 20 November 2017

RECENT NEWS-BY-CRISIS OBESITISES TWITTER



The upsurge in news-by-crisis has caused Twitter, the primary weapon in the digital news-by-crisis armoury, to explode from 140 characters per tweet to a massive 280 characters per tweet. This doubling in size is caused by the over consumption of crises that now prevails in news, both fake and non-fake.

The first instances of the obesitised version of a Twitter storm, now upgraded to a Twitter Hurricane, to reflect the recent aggrandisement, have been named Twitter Hurricane Weinstein, (THW) and Twitter Hurricane Spacey, (THS). In both instances, the centres of the hurricanes, Weinstein and Spacey, have asserted they will ‘seek treatment for’ or ‘look at’ their behaviour, which is not much use to their victims, but it does let justice systems and police off the hook. More tweeting is expected, well up to the 280 character limit.

Despite their being no government in Northern Ireland, the new obese twitter activity continues unabated with a gale of hot air emanating from the Twitter community adding to the heat coming from the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) enquiry. RHI was a corrupt government licence to burn public money, given out under cover of a scheme to shift businesses, who could afford it, to renewable energy consumption. It may also have served to buy votes and influence. The enquiry stuttered into flame, with non-Twitter users – the vast majority of the world’s population – wondering what all the fuss was about, exclaiming to each other directly: “Tell us something we don’t know.”

Salvation may be on hand for the newly obese Twitter with the announcement that the President of Sinn Féin, Gerry Adams is to step down from his day job to devote more time to his tweeting, an activity at which he is particularly avid. The Twitter community await with bated breath. The rest of the world’s population just carry on breathing, as best they can.

Immediately following the announcement by Twitter, two UK government ministers left the Cabinet run by Frida Kahlo fan and Prime Minister, Teresa May. Michael Fallon, former Defence Secretary and keen advocate of selling fighter jet bombers to the already oversupplied regime in Saudi Arabia, left the Cabinet in the face of a variety of allegations of sexual harassment, summed up, with tongue firmly in cheek, by one female Westminster staffer, who described Michael Fallon as 'dodgy in a taxi'. And more.

Another minister, Priti Patel, resigned from the Cabinet because she blurred the line between work and holidays and didn't tell her bosses. Or perhaps she did and the problem was that more people found out. Or that she didn't tell them enough and when a second 'show and tell' session was required, she was forced to resign. Twitter, well, binged.

Further pressures on Twitter’s girth, causing it to expand two-fold, came from the ironically-named Paradise Papers, which showed that prime-time tv comedy actors, a racing car driver, a sovereign and her family, a football club owner, among others, aided and abetted by well-paid accountants, bankers and lawyers, were moving their cash assets (money, to the non-rich) internationally to evade and avoid paying taxes in their countries of residence. Some of the people named in the TV programme that investigated the papers are so rich that they didn’t know that this was happening, like you put your hand in your pocket and find a coin and exclaim “Wow! I didn’t know I had that.” And then you tweet about it.

Twitterphiles were disappointed to hear that, obese or otherwise, the Pontiff in Rome is not having any tweeting going on at Mass. Questions of solemnity and attention to a divine ritual were raised, though habitual mass-going tweeters cite their ability to be humourless multi-taskers as an adequate response to the Pontiff’s anger. He is reported to be considering a tweet in response, but Twitter may need another boost in character-numbers to cope with his ire. God has not yet tweeted in response, thus far, though the Twitterati are confident s/he will.

Lead-Twitterer in the world, the US President, eased back on tweeting recently, reportedly because he is not sure he has the vocabulary for 280 characters. Those reports were blasted – where else?- on Twitter by observers of the US President’s visit to China. They noted that the US President couldn’t be expected to maintain his usual level of tweeting with lavish entertainment, banquets and military displays so occupying him. Tweets by other people confirmed that the US President couldn’t rise to a 280 character tweet while consuming weaponry-laden spectacles, accompanied by extravagant buffets of jiaozi and bakpau.

“Tell us something we don’t know” is the widely felt and sometimes expressed reaction to all tweeting, slim and non-slim, be it in the worlds of politics, finances or the widespread field of older men harassing younger women and men, sexually and otherwise.

The old dramatist’s saw applies: show, don’t tell,
now amended to: show, don’t tweet. (Check: 15 characters?)










Wednesday 8 November 2017

DAVE DUGGAN ANNOUNCES MEMOIR WRITING PROGRAMME


Following the success of his own book of family stories, RELATED LIVES – an imagined memoir, published by Guildhall Press last year, writer Dave Duggan will run a programme to help other people start writing the stories of their own lives and of family members.
Announcing the programme, Dave Duggan, whose work includes award winning stage-plays and film scripts, as well as radio drama and novels, said: “Readers of my own memoir and many others said they’d like to do something like that. And the breakthrough work of Tony Doherty’s memoirs, with two books now published, supports the idea that many people could consider something similar in some form. It could be a book, or articles in a newspaper or magazines or on-line. It could be a blog. All those options can be explored.”
When asked about the arrangements for the programme, Dave added: “It will start in January. You could think of it as a project for 2018 and this programme will help you stick to this New Year’s resolution. It’s called KICK START WRITING YOUR (FAMILY) STORY and is a mix of group sessions and one-to-one mentoring.”
There will be four group sessions in January/February 2018, followed by one-to-one mentoring sessions, concluding in September 2018. There are 12 places on the programme and the fee is £30 in total. The group sessions will take place in Holywell, 10-12 Bishops Street, Derry Londonderry.
Gerard Deane, director at Holywell, added: “We’re delighted Dave is running this programme here. We’ve known Dave’s work since he wrote stories for early editions of Fingerpost. His idea of kick starting the process of writing family stories fits well with our interest in stories and histories rooted in this city and district.”

For more details about how to apply to KICK START WRITING YOUR (FAMILY) STORY, send an email to davedugg@gmail.com, putting KSW in the subject line. This programme is supported by Arts Council of Northern Ireland (ACNI). See RELATED LIVES – an imagined memoir by Dave Duggan (Guildhall Press, 2016).