2014 PREDICTIONS

The edition of Old Fugger’s Almanac for 2014 has been released. Here’s what it says is in store for the year ahead. How many of these predictions will actually come to pass? Remember, I got everything right enough…ish last year kind of. So, here are the Old Fugger’s Almanac predictions for 2014…

1. There’ll probably be another fucking earthquake.

2. The first ever world leader to be made with a 3D Printer will prove popular with the world's first ever 3D Printer made voters.

3. People will complain about ‘ghostfood’ and culinary psychics will be called upon to exorcise haunted plates.

4. During a controversial appearance at the 2014 Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards, Miley Cyrus will perform cunnilingus on herself.

5. The mystery of who the fuck actually buys Hot Press magazine will remain unsolved.

6. Saoirse Ronan will undergo gender reassignment and change her name to Ronan Saoirse.

7. Prediction 8 will be this prediction.

8. This prediction is prediction 7. (See, I told you. That’s one I’ve got right already)

9. Expect a mind-blowing introduction to 3D entertainment without glasses called Real Life.

11. Mass attendance quadruples when the Catholic Church replaces transubstantiation with a raffle.  Winning tickets will be drawn from the tabernacle and whoever wins will get all the cash that was collected in the baskets.

12. Amy Huberman will cut the ribbon at the launch of a new property bubble.

13. A fatal virus will exclusively target right wing internet posters with Family Guy avatars. The death is protracted and agonising and there is no cure. I repeat, THERE IS NO CURE!

14. RTE will set out in a brave new direction and commission more lifestyle programmes. (You can absolutely count on this one coming to pass.)

15. Clouds are given the vote but people fear tropospheric mists of condensed vapour mightn’t be all that bothered about participating in the democratic process. The €7.5 million spent on airship polling stations is considered by many to be a waste but the party contributor whose company won the profitable bid to make the airships expresses delight.

16. The FIFA World Cup final in Brazil will be ruined when the ball is kicked right out of the stadium into a nearby garden and a grouchy neighbour refuses to give it back.

17. Economics correspondent Sean Whelan will have a breakdown on the Six-One News tearfully admitting that he knows ‘fuck all about fucking fuck all’. He will be replaced by Jim Power.

18. During the summer, you’ll be drinking a can of fizzy orange and a bee will fly over and start hassling you. It won’t piss off and you’ll be forced to leave the can on a wall and forget about it.

19. Later in the summer of 2014, you will leave the sliding glass doors that lead to your garden open as well as the door to your fridge and a badger will sneak into your kitchen and get inside the fridge and then you’ll come into the room and see the fridge door open and close it and later that night your daughter will get up for a midnight snack and go into the kitchen and not bother turning on the light and open the fridge and loudly scream when a frosty badger leaps out at her and runs for the sliding glass doors and smashes against them because you closed them too and then, concussed and angry, the badger will skid around the linoleum making a really weird high-pitched sound and your daughter will never recover from the trauma and never fully trust you again. Remember, this is just a prediction and it is still within your power to ensure the events described in the preceding long sentence do not come to pass.

20. Bloggers will continue to blog, Facebookers will continue to facebook, Tweeters will continue to tweet and journalists will continue to do whatever the fuck it is they think they are doing and all of this content will continue to rise like steam and merge with the psychic ether forming a kind of layer of trivia over everyone’s heads that blocks out the sun and prevents us all from seeing anything worthwhile, going forward. LOL!

And that’s the end of today’s trivial little listy distraction. Happy New …yeeaaauuuugh

ENDA AND THE EXIT

So, I was asked to write the televised address to the nation that you’ll all be watching on Sunday. Enda’s rehearsing it off the teleprompter right now. Here’s what you can expect:

What a week it has been, not just for Ireland but the world. We lost a truly historical figure. As I wrote in the book of condolences - ‘Noble savage Simba, you did not go gently into that good night for you’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din’. The ‘good night’ and ‘Gunga Din’ bits are quotes from literature that I thought it statesman like to include, although I’m not sure they have books over there. Either way, Simba is gone now. Yes, Simba is gone but such is the circle of life that we not only say adieu to good things but bad things also. Tonight I can happily tell you all, all of you in your homes and on the streets of Ireland and those laying bereft in the gutter and at the bottom of remote lonely lakes, that the time has come for us to bid adieu to the bailout.

Now I know it wasn’t easy and has been quite the test, not just for you, the people of this nation, but for the Fine Gael party. Difficult and unpopular decisions had to be made but the party has gotten through this, maintaining healthy support from the populace and, you know, perhaps, just maybe, the populace itself will also make it through these times with some semblance of quality of life. Who knows? I wouldn’t count on it but stranger things have certainly happened so we can hope and what are we without hope? I will tell you what we are without hope. Without hope we are Luke Ming Flanagan and Clare Daly. Jaysus, who’d want to be either of them yokes? (chuckle gently to yourself here Enda)

(pause)

(reassume the serious expression and proceed) The important thing is that we made it. Fine Gael made it and is looking at another term in office under my stewardship. I saw us right. They doubted me, Lucinda, Leo, Coveney, all the young bucks, Bruton’s babies, but I saw us through. As would be expected of any great leader, I strode forward, I stood proud, I put my hand up and I asked mammy Merkel - ‘an bhfuil cead agam dul go dtí an markets’ and mammy said yes. Yes we can. To quote another marvellous black fella - ‘is feidir linn’. Do you member the uplifting afternoon he spent with us in Dublin? Him and Jedward and Amy Huberman. Was Amy Huberman there? She probably was. It was lovely wasn’t it? I had a lovely time myself and there’ll be more lovely times ahead too. That I guarantee. Lovely times ahead, for me certainly and perhaps even for some of you. Just sit tight and wait and see. You never know. In the heel of the hunt, whether there are lovely times ahead for you or not is neither here nor there. Small tragedies are not recorded by history but large triumphs are and the Fine Gael party has certainly triumphed. We are exiting the bailout! Do you know what that means? Do you realise the ramifications? I don’t. I admit that. But I do know that it sounds good and so did ‘is feidir linn’ and you all bought into that remember? Jesus, yeah, you did. Unbelievable. To be perfectly honest, I really thought this job would be a lot tougher than it is.

Anyway, to conclude. Personally, and on behalf of the Fine Gael party, I would like to thank you, the Irish people, the citizenry of this nation, for the support, stoicism, patience, timidity and astonishing gullibility you have exhibited over the course of this difficult period. Fine Gael (now incorporating Labour), couldn’t have pulled this off without your dutiful compliance and patriotic lassitude. Go raibh maith agaibh. 

I now return you to the usual programming. Room To Improve should be on. Do you like that? Fionnuala loves it. I rarely get the chance to see much television myself. Those state assets don't sell themselves you know.

FUGGER 400!

Health care cuts will incentivise the sick to get better. Facilitating the culture of illness is unfair on the tax payer. Malingering is no longer an option. Get up from your beds and show some self respect. I’m well. I like being well. It’s good to be well. Wouldn’t you like to be well? Let’s fight the infirmity trap! Don’t think about giving up! Quitting isn’t an option! We’re scrapping the body bag allowance so keep breathing! Keep the blood flowing! Let’s keep those hearts beating! Let’s Go Ireland! We’re turning the corner again! We’re back on track! One cochlear implant is more than enough! No more needless expenditure! Reform! Probity! Rugby! Amy Huberman! New shoes! Is Féidir Linn car stickers! This is Fugger’s 400^th post! Can I have a job in public relations?

 

THE RETURN OF THE LATE LATE

Great to see the Late Late back on our screens after the Montrose holidays. Tubbs got things off to a cracking start when he interviewed the essence of Amy Huberman. Amy couldn’t actually make it herself but in her place was an ethereal avatar that was released, genie like, from a bottle. It formed into a sort of solid shape, almost like the real Amy, and it spoke in this weird echoey voice. It seemed really lovely though and Tubbs reminded viewers that it is available from all good perfumeries now. He actually used the word ‘perfumeries’.

Next Tubbs covered the talk of Dublin 13. I am of course referring to the astonishing discovery that is Clongriffin Man – recently unearthed from pyrite and said to be at least several years old - or thereabouts. An expert Tubbs was talking to said the well-preserved corpse might have met its end as some sort of sacrifice or maybe after leaping in front of the DART. ‘Either way’, said the expert, ‘he’s had it’.

Then Tubbs had a child on and interviewed her. She said her schoolbag was very heavy and that she was very fond of sweets. Tubbs asked the child what she wanted to be when she grew up and the child replied that she was only eight and had no idea. She suggested that maybe Tubbs could give her a break.

After the child came the dogs. A fella from Meath was breeding invisible dogs. They couldn’t be seen and they didn’t make any sound either. The breeder said that this made them perfect pets – no hairs on the furniture or late night barking. Someone in the audience roared out that the invisible dogs were an abomination against God but Tubbs got the boom mic away from that nutter quick enough. Then Tubbs awarded an invisible puppy to everyone in the audience. Some people said that they couldn’t feel any weight or fur or anything and then the breeder said that the puppies were not just silent and unseeable but also intangible. ‘For a while there I was worried we’d been sold a pup’, quipped Tubbs and everyone pretended to hold and stroke the non-existent puppies for the rest of the show, such is the power of the telly – peace be upon it.

Finally, Tubbs had someone on who had undergone a terrible ordeal of some sort and come out the other side with a few observations about life and a publishing deal. As Tubbs spoke to this person his voice was gentle and deferent. Then, when that interview was over, Tubbs called someone on the phone and gave them a car. The person on the other end of the line said he was over the moon with his new car and that he was going to bundle the whole family into it and, I quote, ‘drive it straight off the nearest fucking pier’.

Then, to close the show, The Knights of Saint Columbanus House Band performed the following song and everyone started moshing about and absolutely wrecked the place as the credits rolled.

GIANT BABOON HUBERMAN PYJAMAS

I was watching streamed footage of the Large Hadron Collider the other night. The whole thing exploded and this fifty foot baboon with green fur appeared. He had bright yellow eyeballs and in them you could see the whole history of the Universe speedily unfolding in reverse. The baboon was holding a sceptre and set atop it was the head of Buddha and he was weeping. The baboon was hunched, as if to suddenly pounce from the top of a gigantic jewel encrusted turntable that revolved and played the record The O-Men by the band The Butthole Surfers (as mentioned before). The giant baboon’s lips drew back and revealed fanged diamond teeth. He opened his mouth wide and he bellowed the words: ‘FEAR ME, FOR I AM THE GAME CHANGER!’

I found the whole display a tad ostentatious to be honest so I logged on to showbiz.ie instead. Showbiz.ie had a picture of Amy Huberman dressed like a pyjama girl. ‘O.M. fuckin G.’ I exclaimed aloud, ‘what is she thinking?????’

I like to keep my world small. I like things manageable.

OCCUPY DAME STREET: THE FUGGER REPORT

Dropped in on the Occupy Dame Street crowd. I wasn’t sure what was up so I thought I’d check it out and make up my own mind. I was wondering about the demographics and beliefs of the people staying there so I asked a few questions. ‘Do you have a job do you, do you though, do you even work?’ I asked in a friendly manner. Then I asked another question before they could reply to that one because, let’s face it, we all know what the answer would be. My second question was ‘what do you want?’ but I could kind of guess the answer to that one too so as they opened their mouths and drew breath to speak, I roared ‘Oh that’s absolutely ridiculous!’

They were all fairly young. ‘Does your mammy know you’re here?’ I asked one girl in a concerned manner. She just walked off. Walked off! I mean it would be great to see young people engage politically but don’t we have Young Fine Gael for that?

My next question was ‘who’s your leader?’ ‘We don’t have a leader’, one managed to say. Imagine that? They forgot to get a leader. Bit of an oversight eh? I mean, could you imagine if armies went to war without leaders? They’d be running around all over the place, firing guns at the wrong people and behaving like lunatics. What kind of war would that be? No, you need a leader. That’s what I said to them. I said: ‘you need a leader for God’s sake!’

Then I asked them if they had any celebrity endorsements. I thought this was a good question. It’s not really a runner unless someone like Amy Huberman pops around and has a bang on the old bongos is it? They kind of sniggered at my suggestion but I reminded them that celebrities ended world poverty a couple of years ago. Bono and Annie Lennox and all that. Do you remember? It was a fantastic bit of telly. Annie giving it socks. Peter Sutherland on the tambourine. I asked them why no one famous had shown up. ‘Where’s Huberman?’ I asked. ‘Where’s Barry Egan?’ I requested. ‘You lack any credibility’, I pointed out. ‘You could at least contact Blackie off Glenroe’, I helpfully suggested.

Well, they got a bit aggressive then. One of them comes up to me and says ‘would you like some vegetarian quiche?’ which is more or less accusing me of being an animal killer. But who’s the real killer here? Is it me, because I like the odd sausage sandwich, or is it them, because they are KILLING Ireland’s competitiveness, KILLING Ireland’s international reputation, and KILLING Ireland’s hopes of recovery? Think about it. I’ve been down there. I’ve listened to these people and I know. I said as much to them. I said ‘you’re killers, all of you, KILLERS!’ but they didn’t want to listen. They all went off and pretended to be interested in a pot of lentils someone was stirring.

I was a bit disgusted. I went home. I made my dinner and watched the Six One News. Back to reality. Dobson was broadcasting live from Plato’s Cave.

GODZILLA

(Pictured above: . . . huh?)

I had a dream last night that Godzilla was stomping through the Irish Sea and headed towards Ireland. He was looking very fierce. His eyes were a blazing red and he was waving his fists around in that way he does. He was roaring his head off too and it was deafening. He really was a terrifying sight, I can’t emphasise it enough. He looked like he was fit to give the place a right going over.

Anyway, I was standing on the coast as he reached it, looking out at the mighty tsunamis that heralded his arrival by rolling into shore and trying to stay on my feet despite the awful tremors beneath me and collapsing buildings around me. Behind me was a massive congregation of tens of thousands of people but they didn’t seem to be interested in Godzilla. They were all dancing and cheering and Twittering on their iPhones as Bryan Dobson and Amy Huberman MCed an open air gig by Jedward and Westlife. Enda Kenny, Mary McAleese, David Begg and a few other dignitaries were there too, leaping about and providing backing vocals and everyone seemed to be very happy.

As his colossal foot slammed down upon Irish soil, Godzilla’s furious expression changed to one of slight perplexity. Peering down upon the masses, the monster’s brow furrowed and his head tilted to one side in the manner of a confused dog or journalist. Then Godzilla turned and he looked right at me. He was staring right at me with this puzzled expression and I was frozen to the spot. Then, emitting terrible sulphurous fumes, Godzilla opened his massive fanged mouth and it occurred to me that the creature was about to speak. And speak he did, Godzilla looked me right in the eye and said ‘Honest to God, can you believe these fuckin muppets?’
I didn’t know what to say. I just shrugged. Then I woke up.

I have no idea what that dream meant but I thought I’d share it with you anyway.

CRAP MAN V HUBERMAN

DO AS THE MAN SAYS AND CLICK THE LINK BENEATH HIM!

LINK: CRAP MAN V HUBERMAN!

HUUUUUUUUUUBERMANNNN!

Like the rest of you, I just can’t get enough of Amy Huberman. It’s a delight to behold such an exceptional talent in such a down to earth, agreeable and non-threatening package. Did you see her in the papers this weekend? You must have, she was in all of them. She’s in some dark film that has dark themes and performances that are dark. She’s not afraid to try new things and stretch herself like an artist or something would. I can’t wait to see her in her new role and can only hope she excels in it as much as she did in The Clinic or in writing that book she wrote or in the society pages of the Sunday Independent or as head girl in school.

I really like the sound of her name too. I like to roll it around in my mouth. ‘Huberman’, I say to myself. ‘Huuuuuuuuuubermannnn’. ‘Huuuuuuuuuubermannnn!’ ‘Huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuubermannnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn!’ It’s a nice name. Nice sounding.

I thought Amy was great when she presented the Irish Film and Televisual Huberman Awards and I thought she really deserved the award for best Huberman on the night. I really liked seeing her presenting the award to herself and kissing herself on the cheek and saying she couldn’t believe she had won the award for the third year running. That was amazing. She really is exceptional. I’d hate it if she retired. It would be awful. I don’t know what I would do with myself. What would any of us do? It would be like Diana Spencer all over again only instead of being wrapped around a Parisian pillar in a fancy car, Amy would probably just be wrapped up in bed in some massive gaff in Dalkey. Still, the loss would be awful and not even Charlene McKenna could fill the gap because she’s a bit too common.

Amy really is great and so down to earth. She’s just a normal girl like me really, only a bit better, a bit more special because she’s on the telly. Amy’s not up herself because she’s on the telly though. She’s very normal. I think Amy’s special appeal can be found when you see her act, or when you read her book, or watch her presenting awards. When you see Amy doing these things you think ‘I could do that’. You think, ‘I could probably do a better job than that’ and I reckon that is what makes Amy so likeable and non-threatening and not a bitch. Please oh please, don’t ever take her off the telly.

Come on now, let’s raise a toast. Let’s raise a toast to Amy. Lift your glass and join me in saying the words ‘to Huberman’. Ah she’s a tonic. I can’t get enough of her. I wonder what she is doing now. I wonder is she on the telly. Is she in any magazines I have lying around? She’s got to be around somewhere, on something, a chatshow or even an ad for a telly programme that will be on later in the week. I need a fix now. Christ, I’m shaking here. I’m going cold turkey. I better go out and get the RTE Guide or something. I need some Huberman before the cramps set in. I need me some Huberman bad. Huberman, Huubermann, Huuuuuuuuuubermannnn, Huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuubermannnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn!

FEEDBACK FOR 'CREATIVES'

'Yeah, that's good but could you make it a different kind of good so that as many people as possible find it good or at least think it might be good from what they'll see in the ad we'll make to make it look good even though it probably won't be good once you've tried to make it so good that everyone thinks it's good.

Can you do that for us? . . .Good.'