JUST JENNY

Jenny was glad to have finally found a reason for being. She'd had trouble finding any reason but was actively searching. Her lack of interest in just about everything had isolated her. She was always on the periphery of conversations at her school, simulating interest and nodding and pretending to laugh or gasp at the right times but never truly engaging. She was no one's best friend or worst enemy. She was just Jenny. 'Oh, it's just Jenny', people said. Even her mother said it. Just Jenny, someone adults kept alive and healthy to see what might become of her. Well, she had decided what she was going to become and, my oh my, what she became.

Despite her persistence, Jenny's online forum contributions and Facebook posts always went unacknowledged. That is until Aarzam from Luton (a place in England) started responding to her because she responded to him. He kept going on about God and justice and all this stuff and Jenny asked him what he was talking about. What followed was a correspondence that lasted for months. Jenny didn't really care what they were talking about, the important thing was that they were talking. Jenny never had a point of view on anything so she consciously decided to adopt Aarzam's point of view on everything. Not everyone agreed with Aarzam, in fact some people thought he was crazy or evil, but he got people's attention and attention was something Jenny craved.

Anyhoo, as the girl in question would put it herself, this all led to Jenny being stopped at the airport and asked to step into a back room to answer some questions. She told them, flatly (everything she said came out flatly) that her destination was Syria and that she was joining her boyfriend. The airport security were nonplussed by this strange girl in a homemade burka fashioned from a bed sheet dyed black. Things became even more confusing when they asked Jenny where she was from. South County Dublin was the answer but her accent was clearly United States. She told them her 'mom' spoke like that too. She was asked if her 'mom' was American. 'I don't think so', Jenny said. They asked Jenny if she had ever been to the United States. Jenny said she hadn't. They asked Jenny why she had an American accent. Jenny wasn't aware that she had an American accent and said it might be because she 'watched a lot of shows'.

So, like, anyways, things turned into a really big deal. Aarzam had been seen in a viral where a non-unionised freelance journalist got beheaded. Jenny became the opposite of famous, infamous, for a while but then she just became famous when she renounced her newfound beliefs and ran a mini-marathon in aid of something, she wasn't quite sure what. This was all on the advice of an agent Jenny's mother employed. 'We're going to need someone to handle this Goddamn fucking shit storm', was Jenny's mother's reasoning.

The newspapers and the TV went crazy and spoke to the other kids in Jenny's school and they said that she always seemed like she was keeping secrets. Jenny didn't know they thought that about her. It was kind of cool. Better than boring. Jenny went from being 'Just Jenny' to 'Jihad Jenny' in the space of a few days. Some professor guy called Schlemp wanted to talk to her for a book he was writing called 'Online Anomie International: Islamic Extremism and the Search for Likes'. They were going to make a movie too with Saoirse Ronan acting as Jenny. 'She's OK I guess, she's kind of old though', Jenny told Ryan Tubridy on The Late Late Show. Ryan asked Jenny if she'd lift her burka and give the audience a peek at her pretty face. Jenny did. There was a big round of applause and then Ryan gave everyone a hamper of beauty products.

Jenny's mother was really happy with how the whole thing panned out but she was 'really pissed' at first. There was silence in the car when she picked Jenny up from the airport but then she suddenly exploded. She screamed and slapped her open palm against the steering wheel.

'How the fucking motherfuck did you wind up facebooking with a bunch of Wahhabi crazies?'

'Jeez Mom, take it easy. I don't even know what Wahbabbi or whatever is. I just made friends with a Muslim boy is all. What's the big deal?'

'Just made friends with a Muslim boy?' Jenny's mother repeated, emphasising her incredulity.

'Yeah', said Jenny, 'he kind of like listened to me'.

'And what the heck were you saying that made him listen to you honey?'

'I dunno', replied Jenny, her voice trailing off. 'Just stuff I guess, ...just, y'know, ...stuff.'

TRAGRIDY

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.

LOVELY LOVELY INDOCTRINATION

(pictured: Ryan Tubbs, great fella)

 

Jesus but the Late Late was great last week. Did you see it? It was super. Lovely indoctrination to be had. You can't beat a bit of indoctrination in these difficult times. Bill Cullen was on. He's had a shite time of it. He got the sack and loads of his family died and he was mauled by a bear. I think that's what he said. I'm not sure but I think that's what he said. Maybe he didn't. I wasn't really listening. That's the thing with the telly, you don't really have to listen, you just kind of let it seep in. So I'm not sure if Bill said he was mauled by a bear. Maybe I just made up that bit but it doesn't matter. It's all pretend on the telly anyway so you may as well join in. That's being interactive. Everything is interactive these days. It's great.

Anyway, Bill was saying he wasn't going to let the bear incident get him down and then the house band did a medley of songs from the album Stations of the Crass on their Casio keyboards and then this girl came out and she was in business like Bill. She was loaded but she liked giving to the poor. She was on The Secret Millionaire where nice rich people weigh poor people's tears and give them money depending on the heaviness. They should scrap taxes and fund everything that way, that's the message of the show I think. It's great. Bill loves it. Bill remembers when the nuns scrubbed out the hospital jax 24-7 and not a word of complaint but everyone wants wages these days. 'Ah well, so be it', says Bill. 'I'm off to fuckin outer space anyway so yous are welcome to it', he says. Bill is going to outer space in the rocket Richard Branson bought with all the money he's making off kids' hospitals in Britland. I wonder will Richard ever be on The Secret Millionaire. That'd make great telly. Everyone would probably recognise him though. He's very recognisable. Tony Blair with a beard basically. Maybe if they blinded everyone before he goes out and about. Then he could weigh their tears and give them money to get their eyes fixed. Everyone would be a winner. Especially the telly. The telly always wins in the end.

There was a lovely ad on during the break in the Late Late. It had this old lady making her grandson's football team a heap of sandwiches and it said 'AIB, we're all in it together' and then the show came back on and Tubbs was speaking Irish in a Dublin accent for the laugh. It was a pretty good Dublin accent considering he's never met anyone with a Dublin accent. He's probably heard the accent in documentaries or on Fair City or Youtube. It was funny anyway, like when the gang from The Republic of Telly mock skangers from certain areas in Dublin, Cork, and Limerick that they've seen from from the windows of their cars.

Tubbs did a great job with the presenting overall. He's really coming along. I think he's doing his leaving cert this year so fair play to him for being able to remain so focused on the cue cards. I wouldn't say it's easy for him. I'd say he has to study a fair bit. He's a lovely lad but he doesn't seem the brightest, not bright in that way anyway. He's a great fella for keeping the nation happy though. He has telly intelligence. He's in-telly-gent. (Ha! See that? That's funny.) He's great for providing inspirational chats with people like Bill and that rich girl. He had a golfer on too and he had a trophy and Tubbs says to him 'that's some trophy' and the golfer says 'yeah, thanks'. Then Tubbs asked him if anyone he knew died or if he'd been attacked by an animal or anything and the golfer said 'not recently' and Tubbs looked at him as if he was kind of a prick. That was my reading of the look anyway. I reckon Tubbs thought your man wasn't earning his keep. He had no story to tell. He wasn't overcoming anything. He was just practising his golf and winning trophies.

Anyway, Tubbs finished the show by saying 'let's hear it for the Pope' and then Dobbo from the Six One came out and led everyone in a decade of the Rosary. (Dobbo was just back from Rome where he was interviewing the lads about the Pope packing it in. 'Will God in Heaven be happy with the decision?' he asks a cardinal and the cardinal says that God won't mind too much as long as the next fella is as lovely as the last.) Then they had Holy Communion. One for everybody in the audience. And then they phoned a fella and gave him an Opel Corsa.

Oh yeah, it was great telly last week because the Late Late and RTE were getting the nation back on track. I was feeling it, I really was. Did you feel it yourself? It was like electricity. It was like gentle electricity. It was like having the Holy Ghost come into the room and blow, ever so gently, on your balls. It was a lovely feeling. A feeling of delightful expectation. A feeling of good things to come. We've taken our knocks but we still have the national broadcaster to serve out dollops of the old indoctrination to make us feel better.

David Begg is on the Late Late next week. He's going to be playing Peter Sutherland in a game of charity Swingball. The money raised is going to a little fella from Kinnegad who was born with an arse for a head. He's a great lad by all accounts. He was on the Today With Four O'Clock Show or whatever it's called and he farted Amhrán na bhFiann out his mouth/hole. Great stuff. He might be next in line to present the Late Late if they can get him fixed up. Super telly. Lovely indoctrination. Lovely lovely indoctrination altogether.