It was almost as if they had read my mind, saw that I was a bit fed-up at the opportunities we missed in last week’s election; and then decided to cheer me up by giving me a right good old belly-laugh.
Not one but two – count them, two – ex-Dublin Lord Mayors came out of the gates this week, champing at the bit and making complete eejits of themselves.
First up, huffing and puffing like an old dray horse, was Gerry Breen (Fine Gael) who said that there would be a ‘huge protest’ if whatever government we’re eventually landed with decides not to refund water charges. Outraged he was, I tells yiz; outraged!
Honest to God, I thought I was having some kind of weird acid flashback.
Who exactly is going to organise this protest? I mean, is he thinking of the yokes that wouldn’t get up off their asses to protest when they had something to protest about – like being taxed more than once for a service that was set up to be privatized whilst having the handy added attraction of providing jobs for the boys?
And why exactly would these good and compliant citizens be protesting in the first place?
Over the last year-and-a-half I and those like me have been called whingers and complainers who should just keep their mouths shut because paying ‘is the right thing to do.’ Well, ladies and gents, if you feel that it was the right thing to do then keep on doing it. Keep on paying. But it’s a bit late in the day to be complaining and, eh…’whinging’ about it now.
I have a lot of sympathy for elderly neighbours who I know paid out of fear of the government’s appalling and contemptible threats towards them; and yes, I also have a little for those who paid under duress from their landlords.
But I have exactly zero sympathy for the bar stool philosophers who sat back and sneered, mocked and ridiculed those who took to the streets in their tens of thousands or who took great delight in whooping every time RTE Pravda knocked 80,000 or so protesters off the statistics of how many actually marched.
Folks, you did what you considered ‘the right thing to do’. Too bad that you called it wrong. Just thank those of us who stood up to the government on your behalf and move on with your lives.
Gerry is, by the way, threatening legal action. Ah, stop it; I can’t take any more!
Back from the Dead
As it that hilarity hadn’t been enough to make my day, earlier in the week the dreaded Royston Brady (no relation – sweet Lord, no relation) re-emerged on the scene, having been missed by no one at all since he upped sticks after having served as an unintentionally funny Lord Mayor and moved to Miami – where he presumably continues to be the cause of enormous mirth as a hotel manager.
Ah, go on – you remember Royston! Looks sort of like a cut-price Prince Andrew (cut price? Heh!). That’s right: big, chunky and a bit thick-looking. Was given the Royal Order of the Boot when he contested elections in 2004. That Royston.
Anyway, R.B wasn’t a bit happy with the protesters who, he said, ‘don’t get out of their pyjamas from one day until the next’.
Well, that settles it: Royston has definitely been spending too much time lying around in that hot Miami sun. If he had looked at something other than RTE he might have noticed that it poured down (oh, the irony!) at almost every protest I was at. I sure as hell wasn’t wearing pyjamas, I can tell you.
The very idea.
Some people have expressed the opinion that Royston, the self-satisfied expletive deleted that he is, stay in bloody Miami where they’re welcome to him.
I disagree. I’m always up for a few laughs and so we most certainly need Royston back here.
In fact, maybe he could even help out his moaning ex-Lord Mayor buddy, Gerry Breen, with the protest.
Now that I would pay good money to see.
