NATIONALISM

(pictured above: The national flag of Insania)

Nationalism is great isn’t it? I think it is anyway. It’s cute. You have a bit of a fight and win your land and give it a little name like something-land or something-ania or just something. You make a little flag with a picture on it or maybe just a few colours or maybe a barcode and you put it up a pole and salute it in your little military outfits with the buttons all polished and you invent a little march you can do and blow a trumpet and sing a little song about your nation with little words about how great everything is and how good you are at fighting and how God likes you the best and all that. It really is very sweet the whole nationalism thing and practical too.

The practical element is the morale boosting that nationalism provides. I mean, if you didn’t have nationalism how could you muster the will to go off killing wogs just because they threaten your sweet deal on hot water bottle imports? (Oh dear, I’ve just realised I typed ‘wogs’ out loud. Please forgive me. I’m not racist or anything, it’s just the nationalist fervour.) If you didn’t have nationalism you might find yourself on a battlefield wondering just what the Hell you’re doing ramming a bayonet into a complete stranger. Where would your hot water bottle imports be then? I’ll tell you where, at the mercy of Wogland that’s where! The wogs would be exporting hot water bottles to you for top dollar and using the money to buy bayonets so they can stick them into you.

Of course, seeing as there would be a demand, you could always start making bayonets and selling them to the wogs. This might actually start good trade relations. Some important wog nation dignitaries might visit your nation and exchange gifts with your nation’s dignitaries, little tokens like a tasty cabbage or a fancy ornament or a fancy ornament of a tasty cabbage. And the wog nation’s dignitaries could stay for a few days and go see a few important statues or something and it would be on the telly and then the wog nation’s dignitaries would invite your nation’s dignitaries to Wogland and you’d be glad because the wog nation’s dignitaries liked your nation’s dignitaries.

National dignitaries are so called because they are dignified enough to represent their nations, unlike the rest of you. You’re not dignified like national dignitaries at all. You’re just normal undignitaries, shuffling around the place, blowing your noses and stuffing used tissues into pockets filled with old bus tickets. Jesus, when I think of it, the state of you. Really! All you’re good for is getting bayonets stuck into you. At least that way you’re doing your nation some service. Going forward.

HELSINKI

All the clocks in my house are set to different times. None are set to your time. They are set to different time zones. I have a few that have completely stopped. When people ask about the stopped clocks I tell them the clocks are set to Helsinki time. When people point out that the clocks are all stopped at different times I just laugh and say ‘that’s Helsinki for you’.

There’s a strange smell in my house. Actually, there is no smell. No smell at all. That’s what’s so strange about it. You probably think you wouldn’t notice the lack of a smell but you do. It’s like when fridge buzz stops and you’re suddenly aware of the silence. When you walk through my door you are suddenly aware of the lack of smell. People say to me ‘hey, why doesn’t it smell in here?’ and I answer ‘maybe no one farted’ and give a little laugh.

People get a bit freaked out at my house. There are no pictures on the walls. I have no curtains or blinds or light shades or even lights. When I have guests and the sun goes down I’m usually asked to turn on a light or at least get a torch or a candle. I refuse. I tell my guests we’re better off in the dark. ‘You don’t want to see what’s in here with us’ I say. They ask me what I mean. I tell them they know exactly what I mean. They say they don’t and get worked up and demand to know what’s in the room with us. ‘Each other’, I tell them. ‘Isn’t that bad enough?’ I ask.

I keep this huge owl in my bathroom. He’s kind of the boss in there.

There’s a room upstairs in my house that people sometimes wander into by accident while looking for the bathroom. There’s a trampoline in this room and a really skinny lady is bouncing on it and weeping. ‘I’m so hungry’, she pleads. Visitors tell her to come down off the trampoline and get something to eat. I tell them that there’s no use trying to reason with her. ‘That’s my wife’, I explain, ‘she’s addicted to the endorphins released by the bouncing. She’s like a crack addict. She can’t stop. I’ll throw her a sandwich later. She can eat it while she jumps.’

I have an office in my house. I’ve got a lot of files in there. People wonder what’s in the files. I tell them that files are in the files. Then they ask what are in the files in the files and I tell them more files. This usually goes on for a while until they discover that there are a never ending amount of files within files and that the office stores infinity. The files have names on them, ‘MacCruiskeen’, ‘Pluck’, and so on. ‘Why do the files have names on them?’ I’m asked. ‘Why does anything have a name?’ I ask back. I’m pretentious that way.

My house has no garden but I mow the lawn daily. Just to be on the safe side.

As you enter my house, you see a huge electrical pylon to the west. When you leave it’s to the east. Everyone notices this. No one mentions it. It makes me laugh.

People tend not to stay too long when they come over to my house. They grow tired of my cryptic pronouncements. The constant squeaking of trampoline springs plays upon their nerves. They can’t piss with the owl staring at them. They usually end up bumping into something when it’s dark. Even when it’s daylight, the strange architecture of the place makes them uneasy, spatially discombobulated and a little dizzy.

People don’t stay long and rarely visit but that’s OK with me. I’ve got things to do. I’ve got clocks to unset and owl shit to clean up. I’ve got to make a sandwich for the wife and sort through infinity by name. Don’t let that put you off though. I mean, it would be OK if you wanted to pop around for a cup of something. You’ll take the cup and put it to your lips. Then you’ll spit the contents out in disgust and say ‘what the hell was that?’ I’ll just laugh and shrug and answer ‘something’.

Why not come around on Wednesday? I’ll be pretending that it’s Tuesday. It’s always Tuesday in Helsinki.

NATIONAL TRANSITIONAL COUNCIL APPPOINTMENT BUREAU TM.

(pictured above: pick a loony, any loony)

I’m setting up a national transitional council appointment bureau. ‘What’s a national transitional council appointment bureau Mr. Fugger?’ I hear you ask. Well, what we do is go around the world filling political vacuums by appointing candidates from the area to govern. So, imagine for example, some despot loses the run of himself and his subjects are forced to shoot him in the head, what happens then is that we come along and find the right people to replace the despot before things get out of control sans leadership and the place goes nuts and people start looting Foot Locker and the like. My national transitional council appointment bureau is called The National Transitional Council Appointment Bureau (registered trademark, in association with Foot Locker).

‘But how do you know who is right for the job Mr. Fugger? Ruling a country is a lot of responsibility’, I hear you pitifully bleat. Well, with the assistance of Google, Wikipedia, a few old copies of The Wall Street Journal and Folens Geography for the Leaving Certificate (1997) we familiarise ourselves with the layout, economy, and customs of the area in question. Once we feel we have the measure of the place, we select various candidates from positions of responsibility (such as bankers, business people, and military types) to take up the reins.

The main thing is to find out who the masses would like to lead them and then select individuals who might sort of resemble that type of person (kind of, in a way) but who would also be unlikely to cause any hassle for the more organised nations of the world and business ventures therein going forward. We don’t want loonies or upstarts. No one wants loonies or upstarts. However, we might appoint the odd loony depending on what kind of loony he or she (but more likely ‘he’) is. Some loonies are quite sane when looked at from a different perspective and we in The National Transitional Council Appointment Bureau TM (in association with Foot Locker) are all about perspective.

In short: It is the mission of The National Transitional Council Appointment Bureau TM (in association with Foot Locker) to provide leaderless nations with the appropriate knowledge and related BAE Systems products to properly fulfil their needs and set them squarely on the world stage as they embark on their newly won springtime of freedom, ...and all at a reasonable price (national assets being the preferred form of payment going forward). Our friendly, knowledgeable and professional staff will inspire, educate and problem-solve for our customers whether said customers like it or not.

. . .OK, look, it doesn’t always work out. We usually make a right shit of this sort of thing to be honest but we try our hardest and that’s what counts isn’t it? Well, that and the pay and we always make sure we get paid. IN FULL!

BTW: Snickers is the official between meal treat of The National Transitional Council Appointment Bureau TM (in association with Foot Locker). Why not try the new Snickers peanut butter or almond bars? Mmm, chocolate just got better!

FACTORY

I opened a factory once. It didn’t make anything but people invested in it because they speculated that one day it would make something. They thought it was good factory, with its big conveyer belts and large delivery depot and all of that. The investors thought whatever the factory ended up making would be well made so they bought shares.

After a while, the investors noticed that the factory wasn’t making anything and they panicked and started to sell their shares so I sent out a press release saying that the factory was about to start making something and that it would be great. After the word went out, people started investing in the factory again. The press release got the factory over a difficult bump in the road but the factory never made anything. I wasn’t really interested in that side of the business.

I’m sure you saw my factory. It was on the road to your cousin’s house. Do you remember? It was in the big muddy field. Like a giant tombstone. It had a word written on it. Emblazoned across it. But you can’t remember what the word was. Neither can I to be honest. It was probably a word like ‘Paradigm’ or ‘Optimum’ or ‘Ventron’ (whatever that means). Or maybe it was the name of something from Greek or Norse mythology. Or maybe nothing was written on it or maybe the actual word ‘Nothing’ was written on it. Or maybe there was just a symbol on it, like an astrological thing or maybe a big question mark. Who knows?

Anyway, I eventually sold the factory to someone who sold it someone else who burned it down for the insurance money so there is nothing in that big muddy field anymore except for a strange smell, like melted plastic. But you won’t smell it because you won’t be passing that way. You don’t visit your cousin anymore and haven’t for a long long time. Not since your cousin got drunk and made that cruel observation about you that hurt because it was true or at least kind of true. You rang a taxi from the house and left on polite terms but you both knew you’d never see each other again. You didn’t say a word to the driver the whole way home. You just looked out the window. Lost in your thoughts. You passed my factory. It didn’t even register.

We are an industrious species. The human capacity for invention is limitless as is the human imagination. Even where there is nothing we see something. Well, some of us do. Some of us see opportunity where others just see a big muddy field with an empty factory in it with something written on the factory but it’s hard to say for certain what exactly it says and it doesn’t matter anyway because the factory is on fire.

ARMS TRADING

(pictured above: Fugger Lump Hammers celebrity endorsement, 'If A Job’s Worth Doing. . .')

I’ve recently gotten involved in the arms trade. Let’s face it, people are always going to fight and if I don’t sell them weapons someone else will so it may as well be me. Now I realise I can’t compete with the like of BAE Systems or anything so I’m not exactly selling self-propelled artillery to developing nations or any of that. No. I’m much more small scale. I sell things like knuckle dusters and slash hooks to warring Traveller clans.

I don’t feel bad about it. If the warring parties didn’t use my weapons they’d just be bashing each other’s heads in with rocks or something. At least this way someone (i.e. me) gets to profit and jobs are created and, in these difficult times, that’s good for the economy as a whole.

There were journos complaining about me in the local papers though. They were going on about some kid who got shot full of pellets as she crossed a halting site and lost an eye and blah blah blah. They traced the pellets back to my company and started filling their pages with fuzzy pictures of me looking sinister, getting in and out of cars and going to the shops with my hood up.

I realised I had to put a stop to all this bad press so a subsidiary company I own (one that sells lump hammers) bought a significant amount of advertising space in their rags. They don’t like to bite the hand that feeds, the old hacks. Then I sent out a press release saying I’d donated some money to a traveller resource centre. In truth, none of the resource centres would take my money so I had to set up my own. No one used my resource centre and it didn’t even strictly exist but it’s the thought that counts. Anyway, next thing I knew, the papers were portraying me as a ‘philanthropic lump hammer entrepreneur’ and said my resource centre would ‘herald a new spring for the Traveller community’. They didn’t even mention the weapons side of the business. Nice one.

The Internet is a bit harder to control though. Bloody activists were all over it calling me a hypocrite because I make donations with one hand whilst profiting from misery with the other. Well, I hired a PR company to flood the forums with the following counter-argument: These people are going to kill each other anyway and at least some of the profits made from arming them goes toward their resource centre. When people argued back, the PR people pulled a masterstroke. They started referring to those who opposed the arms sales as ‘anti-resource centre’. I thought that was bloody genius. That PR company was money well spent.

Do you need anything yourself? How about a lump hammer? They get the job done. They’re duel purpose actually.

AH, THE WORLD’S GONE MAD!

(pictured above: troublesome British youths. I’m not racist or anything but note the black)

See those riots in England? I blame the parents. You can imagine them can’t you? Cheap jewellery and tracksuits. The type that keep telling passers by to ‘jog on’. They’re too lazy to leave the house and go earn a wage so they send their kids out to loot places like MFI and Debenhams. ‘Bring us back some perfume and a Blue Ray DVD player and some loo roll and a Walls Viennetta and a packet of fags’, they tell the kids and off the kids go. I reckon the police should climb on the roofs of their houses and put snakes down the chimney. I’m serious. All kinds of snakes: rattlers, cobras and even massive things like boa constrictors. Then, when the parents come running from the house because of what’s slithering out the fireplace, the cops on the roof should drop anvils on their heads. Yeah! You read it right! Anvils! Like you see in the cartoons. Right on their heads. That’ll sort the parents out. That’ll stop them moaning about the ‘yoof centre’ being shut down.

I put that on politics.ie earlier today. The lads agreed with me. Then we started talking about unemployed people in general. KingsInns666 said they should be made sign on the sex offender register to get their dole. The shame would act as an incentive to find work. Not a bad idea that.

And there was another interesting thread on there started by StraightTalkinIreland (a very astute poster IMO). It was about the blacks setting off Chinese lanterns on the Luas. Did you hear about that? They do it for the laugh like. FOR THE LAUGH! I’m not being racist or anything but they probably get a Chinese lantern allowance from the state. Paid for with OUR TAXES!!!

Ah, sure what’s the point going on about it? No one’s listening anyway. No one listens to common sense anymore. The world’s gone mad.

A-TYPICAL SYNDROME

A concerned mother brought her child to see me. I diagnosed the child as suffering from A-Typical Syndrome. I prescribed Humzadrone to regulate the symptoms: refusal to go to bed, demanding ice-cream, not taking an interest in school, excessive displays of imagination. I have shares in the company that produces Humzadrone and these shares are performing well. That to me means the drug is popular and if a drug is popular it is popular because it works. I also golf with a director from the company and, despite his fondness for cocaine and inability to talk about anything but himself, he seems a straightforward type of chap who wouldn’t muck people about. That’s my opinion anyway. My professional opinion.

Humzadrone suppresses the causes of A-Typical Syndrome but sadly it has a side effect, listlessness. To counter this I prescribed Zibotrex to the child. Unfortunately Zibotrex has its own side effect, facial ticks. To prevent the facial ticks I prescribed Lugnoxathol which unfortunately causes paranoia so to make sure that didn’t take hold, I prescribed Gaxadril but that causes blurry vision so to make sure the kid’s eyesight wasn’t effected, I prescribed Nanodrexodonk which causes migraines so to prevent the migraines I prescribed Condrox which has the side effect of seizures so to prevent that possibility I prescribed Poxodine which has been known to cause dysentery so to nip that in the bud I prescribed Qwackzadrex which brings with it the side effect of A-Typical Syndrome, but the kid had that anyway so it doesn’t matter.

All of the drugs mentioned above are manufactured by the company mentioned above that has the coke snorting director mentioned above. These drugs must be good because the company’s share prices remain up as does my mood. I don’t need any drugs to make me feel chipper. All I have to do is check my investment portfolio.

Anyway, there’s a four ball planned for Thursday afternoon. I think I’ll tell Daphne (34-26-34) to cancel my appointments and close up early. The kids will still be sick the following morning and I can make them better then.

Oh, and here’s a lovely children’s story you can tell your kids before you bring them out my way for a top quality dosage:

Brandon and the Bipolar Bear (Narrated Storybook) from BPChildren on Vimeo.

BY WAY OF DECEPTION, THOU SHALT DO WAR

I’ll never forget my childhood days as a member of the Junior Mossad Intelligence Collection Club. All you had to do was fill out the form in Warlord comic and send it off. Then you’d be sent some little exercises, to prove your worth. You’d be asked to pick a pal, any pal, and turn the rest of your friends against him. I picked Jimmy. Jimmy put me in a headlock for about fifteen minutes once so he had it coming. I nicked my pal Tom’s football and put it under a bush in Jimmy’s garden. Then, two days later, I proposed we build a tree house in Jimmy’s garden and Tom saw his ball there and, hey presto, Jimmy was branded a thief and had no one to play with for the rest of the summer. I was avenged and, when I sent the details off to Israel, Mossad were impressed.

Then Mossad requested I try something more ambitious and add an extra lair to my machinations. So I told my mate Hughie that Tom had confided in me that he suspected Hughie of stealing the ball before it turned up in Jimmy’s garden. ‘And he said you were a right faggot too’, I added for good measure. Furious, Hughie immediately went down to Tom’s house and gave him a very nasty Chinese burn, not to mention the most vicious wedgie I have ever seen.

My friends were completely divided. I was the only one who remained pals with everyone. I spent the rest of the summer calling around to their respective houses telling them things the others were saying about them and sometimes even arranging fights. All this time, they all thought I was a great pal. Mossad thought I was a great little fella too.

Mossad loved me and started sending me lists of specific targets. There was a family of Pro-Palestinian activists around my way and I was given the mission of going out late at night and smearing dog crap on their car door handles with a stick. The family would be up for the school run in the morning and, well, enough said.

Oh there was fantastic mischief to be had. I grew out of it eventually and got into the PR industry. I hear The Junior Mossad Intelligence Collection Club is still going and kids are still signing up. It’s all INTERNET HIGH JINKS these days: publicising incriminating information on undesirables and then saying other undesirables gave you the information as part of a dirty tricks campaign, thereby hitting two birds with one stone. Ingenious lark. I couldn’t keep up with the kids these days. They’ve a bright future ahead of them I’ll tell you that.

Tin foil hats ahoy!!!