THE LAUGHTER OF CONSENSUS

I don’t like laughter. I don’t like it at all. I mean, what’s so bloody good about laughter? The sound is horrible for a start, somewhere between a shriek and a cough, and your whole body shakes uncontrollably. Your body shudders and you’re making this desperate sound. Your head tilts back and you can’t breathe even though your mouth is wide open. It’s effectively a seizure your having. Your eyes close too, so you are rendered blind for the course of your laughter. It’s nothing short of a nightmare. Think how vulnerable you are when you’re laughing. You’re easy pickings. Imagine, for instance, that you are sitting on a park bench eating your lunch and something makes you laugh. There you are convulsing, shriek/coughing, struggling for air, head tilted back, mouth open and temporarily blind. Anything could happen. A rough youth from the inner city could approach you and kick you on the shin and you’d be unable to defend yourself. A demented badger could bound out from the undergrowth and make off with your sandwiches. Worst of all, a dirty pigeon could swoop down and shit in your open mouth. Laughter is a fool’s game.

Every time something makes me laugh I feel manipulated and violated. To cause laughter is an act of aggression. To reduce another individual to that helpless state is akin to spiking their drink. Furthermore, laughter is often caused by observations that imply an absurdity to existence. Existence is not absurd! A lot of people went to the bother of evolving from apes and forming societies to put some structure on existence. To laugh is to spit in the faces of these people and their selfless efforts. Laughter is the weapon of the subversive, the anarchist, the mad man, and it should be resisted at all times. When you laugh, you not only let yourself down, you let your entire species down.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not against a bit of levity and would even risk saying that there’s a certain form of laughter to which I subscribe. This form of laughter is called The Laughter of Consensus. The Laughter of Consensus is the laughter elicited by witty quips, the type you hear on TV chat shows or used as ice-breakers in formal settings. The Laughter of Consensus serves a purpose. It lets everyone know that you are in good spirits but not about to let things get out of hand by permitting coarse hilarity to spill out all over the place. Like an obedient dog, The Laughter of Consensus is summoned as easily as it is dismissed. Why not give The Laughter of Consensus a try. Try it now, it’s easy. All you have to do is smile and say the words ’ha, ha, ha’ in quick succession. Actually say the words, don’t go making the sound of the other laughter. Just say ‘ha, ha, ha’. Did you do it? Why not? Seriously, do it now. Have you done it? Did it work? So, you see, that is laughter done properly. That is the laughter of the even-keel, the steady ship, the laughter of the man or woman behind the wheel of their own destiny and not the laughter of the flailing buffoon in need of immediate sedation.

To recap: laughter is a sinister/primitive energy and to succumb to it in polite company is tantamount to standing up at a dinner party, undoing the zip on one’s trousers and proceeding to urinate all over the silverware, plates, and glasses. It’s just disgusting really.
IN OTHER NEWS:
Check out the new sensitive tale starring: CRAP MAN!

YAAAAYYYY THE FUTURE!

Above: the Jedwards in the year 2039AD

After a recent accident, involving a precariously placed curb and a modest intake of alcohol, I received stitches to the forehead and a caution that I may experience some dizziness, headaches and perhaps even the odd vision of the future. Thankfully I’ve been spared the concussive symptoms but the visions have been coming thick and fast. There have been many great seers of the future before me: Nostradamus was one, the rarely incorrect Edgar Cayce another, Mother Shipton is also celebrated and we shouldn’t forget the astonishingly accurate Bob Carolgees who received prophetic visions via his spirit guide Spit the Dog. Only time will tell if I am to stand amongst these greats but, just in case, I’ve decided to collect my visions into an almanac of prophesies to be published under the title Olde Fugger’s Almanach of Prophesees. Below is an account of a vision that came to me with unnerving clarity as I dozed off during a rerun of Stargate SG1. Enjoy.

VISION:
I descended through a mist of clouds and beheld Ireland in the year 2039. Jedward were running the country and everyone seemed delighted. ‘They’re great’, said President Huberman. ‘They’re full of harmless fun and energy’, said elderly Archbishop Waters. ‘Yaaaayyyy’, said the population in general.

I observed a Jedward political rally. The two Jedwards were standing upon a stage dressed in tennis gear and using racquets to serve autographed tennis balls out to an ecstatic audience.
‘Hey, it’s great to be Taoiseachs but we’ve got serious work to do, don’t we Jedward?’ said one of them.
‘Yeah Jedward,’ said the other one, ‘there are issues and things. Yeah, let’s hear it for issues though.’
The masses cheered ‘yaaaayyyy issues!’ in response. Then Crystal Swing came onto the stage (the mother is still living at this future point in time but as a wired up brain in a glass tank of preservative fluid with a keyboard attached) and they all started dancing and singing the song Under-Pressure/Ice Ice Baby, which apparently will be Ireland’s national anthem in the year 2039. The overall sensation was one of great hope and optimism which was welcome after my previous vision of the Nama Wars. Ireland was once again open for business and politics retrieved from the degraded state of intervening years. My heart felt glad as I was enshrouded by the mist once again and returned to the present day where I witnessed the closing credits of the most boring television programme ever made.
END OF VISION.

We’ll have to wait and see if that comes to pass but I think it will. Other predictions included in Olde Fugger’s Almanach of Prophesees include:

Badgers the size of vans.

Cowan’s crystal meth shame.

Tubridy’s gender reassignment disaster.

Non-membership of Facebook declared illegal.

. . .and many many more!

Olde Fugger’s Almanach of Prophesees will be available from good New Age stockists such as The Healing Fairy Kinnegad and the ever reliable A1 Crystals Rialto at the reasonable price of €55.

GOD IS ON TWITTER

I see God is on Twitter. Here are a few of the best twats he posted:

# Bit bored today. Made a few clouds. One was in the shape of a roast chicken. LOL!. Twitter account: @GOD about 20 days ago via Divine Intervention

# Can't get that cute human I made a few decades ago out of my head. Who am I kidding, she doesn't know I exist. Saw her reading Dawkins. LOL!. Twitter account: @GOD about 19 days ago via Divine Intervention

# Jesus is still in a strop. It's the whole forsaken thing. He emailed me that awful Larkin poem. WHATEVUUR! Twitter account: @GOD about 18 days ago via Divine Intervention

# Might give it another go with Mary. Hate the haughty way she acts when she beats me at Connect 4 though. Nah, ain't going to work out. Twitter account: @GOD about 12 days ago via Divine Intervention

# Allah keeps sending me links to that Loose Change documentary. I'm unconvinced. Twitter account: @GOD about 9 days ago via Divine Intervention

# Thinking of having a giant ant attack France. Just to see the look on everyone's faces. LMFAO! Twitter account: @GOD about 7 days ago via Divine Intervention

# That Pope fella is fairly camp isn't he? Twitter account: @GOD about 5 days ago via Divine Intervention

# Hit on a few hot nuns earlier. 'But we don't love you in that way Lord' they said! Shouldn't have appeared in the form of a cloud. LOL! Twitter account: @GOD about 4 days ago via Divine Intervention

# Everyone worships the Market these days. I mean, come on. The Market can't even do any magic tricks like transubstantiation or all the cool shit I do DAILY! Twitter account: @GOD about 3 days ago via Divine Intervention

# Watching you humans from above yesterday. Me Almighty, it's depressing. Like a Ken Loach movie. Twitter account: @GOD about 2 days ago via Divine Intervention

# Sick of pasta. Twitter account: @GOD about 2 days ago via Divine Intervention

# The cute human got drunk on cooking sherry last night. She put on roller skates, went out on the back patio and fell on her ass. Like her even more now. Twitter account: @GOD about 1 day ago via Divine Intervention

# Another cloud making day today. Made one in the shape of Snoopy and another like PacMan. No one noticed. Twitter account: @GOD about 2 hours ago via Divine Intervention

So, there you are. He actually seems quite ordinary in a supreme being kind of way.
ALSO!!!
NEW CRAP MAN!. . .click it!

FUGGER’S ANGLO SUGGESTION:

My Anglo suggestion: Divide Anglo into three banks. One will be a Bad Bank (‘fucking hopeless’ if you will) which will borrow money from a second bank (a Good Bank) that will obtain its funds via the recovery of borrowings acquired by a third bank (or Mad Bank). The idea is to have Anglo borrowing money from itself and recapitalising itself with the money it borrowed into infinity, forming an endless loop or eternal mirroring effect that will eventually trap the bank in a kind of Phantom Zone like the one they used to imprison General Zod in the Superman movies with Christopher Reeve going forward.

Furthermore, if my suggestion is acted upon immediately we may see positive results sooner than we think due to the fact that the planets of our solar system recently aligned into the shape of a cross, heralding an exciting new era in banking and high finance logic.
Are you with me?
Do you follow me?
It may seem incomprehensible at first, perhaps a smidgeon overly ambitious, but we must hold true and not lose our nerve at this crucial juncture. The world is making a new kind of sense now and this post-rational era demands imaginative responses and death defying leaps of faith going forward (and backward, all at once) and I for one am fully committed to this approach as it will doubtlessly see our nation around this next corner or whatever the fuck and it should only cost another 70 billion so go back to sleep now plebs.

Bears

I’ll never forget my trip to Yellowstone Park. I was being shown around by my guide and we were deep into the wilds when a sudden panic came over his face. We were standing right behind a huge mother grizzly and her two cubs.
‘Don’t move, don’t even breathe,’ said my guide, ‘if she thinks we are a threat to her offspring she’ll tear us to pieces.’
Well, I resented that a bit. I mean, we had as much right to enjoy the environs as she did and I said as much to my guide.
‘You don’t get it,’ he said, ‘this is a sensitive situation’.
‘Oh, come off it,’ I exclaimed loudly, ‘they said that about Iraq and everything turned out grand there. I’m continuing on’.
‘No Mr. Fugger, please don’t,’ begged the guide, ‘she’ll kill us both.’
I was disgusted by his willingness to appease the woodland bully and decided I wasn’t having any of it. Defiantly, I stormed out from the undergrowth and booted one of the cubs firmly and squarely up the arse. Kapumph! The creature lifted into the air slightly and emitted a yelp. Then the mother turned, fixed me with an irate look and growled. I folded my arms, smirked and stared back at her, in a ‘what are you going to do about that’ kind of way. Then she roared and charged forward. Her claws, fangs and massive frame hurtled toward me at an astonishing speed so I did what any of the rest of you would do: I pushed the guide toward her and, as she ripped the screaming man to bits, I climbed a nearby tree. Ha! That tricked her. Being a dumb animal, she presumed that I had fled the scene so she wandered off with her young into a dense thicket. ‘Go on you furry gobshite,’ I whispered from the branches, ‘go on back to your shitey cave and eat some manky berries.’

Shortly after that, I realised I had no one to guide me back to civilisation. There wasn’t a Spar for miles and miles, or even a Centra for that matter. ‘Well, fuck this,’ I said and, taking a lighter from my pocket, I started an immense blaze that reduced my surroundings to ashes. That attracted the rescue copters and I was soon saved. I reported the bear and insisted she be tracked down and destroyed. I got a lot of press attention and wrote a book (Fugger – A Journey of Carnage and Death, published by Hutchinson). Then I went on Oprah and cried a bit as I recalled the bravery of my guide and the disproportionate touchiness of the bear. (I was advised omit the parts about my kicking the cub up the arse and ‘encouraging’ the guide to confront the mother as these details hindered the thrust of the overall narrative.) Eventually they made a movie of my ordeal starring Matt Damon and he won an Oscar and dedicated it to me. Of course, the usual chronic malcontents left demented internet posts about how I was the architect of my own misfortune but, let’s face it, a lot more people bought my book than read their blogs so I had to laugh really.

So, there you go, another triumph for perception over reality and one in the face for the tyranny of Mother Nature going forward.
IN OTHER NEWS:
A rough sort that puts me in mind of a Dickensian villain has 'insisted' I inform you of his two new comics that have gone up for pre-order, click the link:
http://tommiekelly.com/pre-order-the-new-books/
from his site. . .
TOMMIE KELLY.COM
He's a talented lad and Fugger will vouch for his excellent work but I can't shake the feeling that it will all end for him in some kind of police pursuit through foggy London.