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

GOOD NEWS FOR CHRISTMAS!

 (pictured –  Jesus and Krishna, Marvel Team-Up)

Jesus was born on Christmas day two thousand and thirteen years ago and was murdered thirty three and a bit years later for blaspheming that he was God. He did claim he was God alright but he also said that everyone else was God too. Christians don't talk about it much but that's what he said. I swear, take a look at John 10:34. No one seems all that concerned about it, which I find a bit odd. I mean, you'd think followers of the Good News would pay more attention to the Good News, seeing as it's such good news and all.

Jesus said he was God and we are all God and that's pretty interesting because it means that if we are all God but don't know it then God him/her/itself has forgotten that he/she/it is us too. Are you with me? God forgot God was us so God sent God to remind us that we are God and then we killed God because God was saying God was us and we'd rather not be God because that kind of raises the bar a bit and also democratises the whole set up a bit too much which won't do at all because it suits some of us a lot more to have the rest of us believing that we are less Godly than them. Are you still with me? Are you sure? That was a long old sentence and there was a lot going on in it. It does sum it all up though, the paradoxical nature of the strange game God is playing with himself/herself/itself/ourselves.

It's like this - imagine if you worshipped yourself but then you forgot you were you but continued to worship yourself, wishing that you were you. That's what seems to have happened here. It's a bit of a tragedy. But the Good News is that you are actually you and that's not all, it gets better, you are not just you but you are also God. Great isn't it? I can't really imagine better news than that. You are God!!! And I am too and so's everyone else. Hindus say that we don't realise we're God because we're trapped behind a thing they call the veil of Maya. I reckon some of us are behind several of Maya's veils. You know the type I mean. Deterministic sorts with ulcers. Absolutists. Boring fuckers who are convinced that they are the opposite. People who think about their cars a lot. Those fuckers are completely Mayaed out of I reckon. But, you know, I try not to judge. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone and all that. So, no matter how much I'd like to, I won't chuck a rock through their windscreens and I'll just hope they find enlightenment when they drive around the next corner. No point being angry with myself after all. Lord forgive me, for I know not what I do - and neither must you because you're me too and both of us are the prick in the car apparently.

It's a bit mad the way the Hindus and Jesus believe the same thing isn't it? I don't suppose they could really have the same message though could they? I mean, Hindus don't even have Christmas. It's only Christians that have Christmas. That's because Christians reckon they are the ones that are favoured by God. I suppose it makes sense that God would favour himself/herself/itself/ourselves. Maybe God favours those examples of himself/herself/itself/ourselves that have forgotten they are him/her/it/us. Maybe God favours the forgetful out of pity. Self-pity. Maybe it's due to self-pity that God (a.k.a. us) sits around on his/her/its/our own birthday stuffing his/her/its/our face with chocolate complaining how shit the telly is, wrapped in layers of Maya he/she/it/we gave him/her/it/us for Christmas. Maybe that's it. Or maybe not. Or maybe both. Or maybe neither. Or maybe all of the above. God knows really, ...even if he/she/it/we isn't/aren't sure himself/herself/itself/ourselves.

Are you still with me after all that?

No, ...thought not.

Happy Christmas anyway.

MUSIC IS TRUTH!

Instructions:

Press play on the top video. Then quickly scroll down to the second video and press play on that. Then quickly scroll back up and watch the top video as both play. Then listen as the cosmos speaks the truth behind the words.

Good laugh isn't it?

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.

DO ME A FAVOUR LORD SHIVA AND GET THE F**K OUT OF MY OFFICE!

'Hope fuels the fool because the fool doesn't know what to hope for.' That is the legend that hangs over the entrance to the Fugger Life Coaching office.

There's a lot of discontent out there. There's a lot of people limping through their lives, hobbled by their discontent. A lot of these people come around to Fugger's life coaching office. I get them to sit down and tell me all about it and they do. It's always the same. They are unhappy. All of them. Some want to be understood. These people usually are understood, perfectly understood. The real problem for these people is not that they are misunderstood but, in fact, that they are not understood in a way that they would like to be understood. They would like everyone to understand them as fantastic individuals but others understand them as flawed individuals. Instead of acknowledging that they may actually be flawed, the people that come to my office take the easy option and decide that they are misunderstood. Do you understand that? No, neither do I. I tell these people that they are indeed misunderstood and the person that understands them least is themselves.

Other people often tell me that they wish they were, and I quote, 'fucking dead'. I am forced to point out to these people that their problem is not that they wish they were 'fucking dead' but really that they wish they were 'fucking alive' or maybe just 'fucking'. I'm not sure if that's what these people want to hear but it's what they need to hear. They usually ask me what they can do about it and I tell them to stop wanting things and maybe to try and just let things happen.

You see, the problem for many is that they won't let things happen unless things happen exactly as they want them to. Take the great many who come to me complaining that they are 'unloved'. I tell these people that, unless they are child eating cannibals or something, they are doubtlessly loved by someone but probably just not by the person they wished they were loved by. Then I tell them that the person they wished they were loved by is probably visiting some other life coach complaining about not being loved by some other person and that this other person might well love the person I am talking to and also be feeling similarly unloved. Do you follow me? You probably don't. You often get confused by those perplexing sentences I construct for that very purpose. Apologies. I'll make myself clearer. It's like this, Tom comes into my office complaining that no one loves him. By 'no one' he means Jane. Then I tell him that Ann loves him. Then Jane comes in complaining that 'no one' loves her and I ask if by 'no one' she means Ann and she admits she does and then Ann comes in complaining that 'no one' loves her and she means Tom. It's a Möbius strip of discontent. The Universe's little joke. Lord Shiva playing a game with himself. A strangely miserable game but perhaps entertaining in its misery, like Eastenders or something. I tell those that feel unloved that everyone feels unloved and this is the ultimate irony of the cosmos because everything in the cosmos is the one thing. 'It's as if the top of your head longs to touch the sole of your foot because it fails to realise that they are already connected', I say. It's in response to this that I'm often told by my clients that I'm being far too spiritual and not at all pragmatic. That's when I say that spiritual is pragmatic and that it seems to me what the client actually means by pragmatic is magic, as in a magic solution to all their problems that will bring them their desires on their specific terms. I then conclude by reminding the client that I am a life coach and not a fucking genie and, pointing to the words over the door, I say 'do me a favour Lord Shiva and get the fuck out of my office'.

Yes, my clients often complain that my coaching fails to make them happy and they usually ask for their money back. This is when I remind them of two things. The first is that money doesn't make you happy. The second is that life is not about being happy anyway but actually about feeling fulfilled and fulfillment often comes by a circuitous route that involves a great deal of unhappiness. Take a mountaineer who feels the need to conquer a daunting peak. Climbing to the peak will probably be a miserable and trying experience but the compulsion for fulfillment drives the mountaineer on. When my clients finally understand this they usually return to the topic of the money I've taken from them. (It's very hard to shift people away from the thought of money) 'If money doesn't make one happy Mister Fugger', they ask, 'then why don't you give me a refund?'. My clients often adopt a smug expression when they ask this question, thinking they have turned my own logic against me. This is when I tell my clients that they'll find not getting a refund more fulfilling than actually getting a refund because if they don't get a refund they'll enjoy moaning about it all the time and moaning is obviously what makes them feel fulfilled because actually addressing their fucking problems certainly doesn't seem to do it for them. If this seems unfair to you I'll remind you that the clients and me are one and the same anyway as we are both of the same cosmos so they don't need a refund as they never lost the money in the first place. Remember too, you are also us so if you still think it's wrong for me not give a refund you should remember that you are me so you are also not giving that refund and, like the clients, we are also being denied the refund just as the clients are denying themselves the refund. It sounds complicated but it's simple enough to grasp really, once you're enlightened. We are all one. We are all Lord Shiva's sock puppets, albeit unaware that we are mere avatars in his cosmic game of Eastenders.

****

Look, I hope I'm not coming across as esoteric and heartless. That's not my intention. I know that life can be rough and sometimes it can be very very rough. I also know that depression and sadness are terrible things but discontent, well, discontent is quite another thing. Discontent is caused by a sense of entitlement that is based on cultural norms and today's cultural norms come from the unsophisticated narratives found in popular large screen dramas, advertisements and other kinds of things where all problems are portrayed as solvable and everyone, ultimately, gets what they want. This is nonsense. Even if it were true, once you got what you wanted you'd probably start to want something else. 'Want' is the problem. 'Want' is an addiction. 'Want' is a state of mind. We are indoctrinated to 'want' and not just 'be'. Sure, 'want' makes money but money doesn't make you happy. Mine is the true War on Want! Quit wanting! That should be all you want.

Consider it this way, a thousand years ago my clients wouldn't have had the time to be discontentedly wanting all the shit they want, they'd just be happy enough to have made it to the end of the day without being mauled to death by some kind of gigantic bear.

Do you understand? Are you feeling illuminated? Good. Now, do me a favour Lord Shiva and get the fuck out of my office.

(Remember – although greatly enlightening (and a bit up its own arse these days), visiting fugtheworld.blogspot.com cannot replace a therapeutic relationship with a reliable mental health professional - you crazy fool.)

MY LITTLE PIECE OF PRIZE WINNING ART

I entered the Fasinex® Liver Fluke Drench Art Prize for 2013 with a piece of art that no one was allowed to see. No one, not even the judges, knew what my entry was. They didn't know if it was a painting, a sculpture, a musical composition, a dance performance, a film, an installation or whatever else it could be and I wasn't saying. The idea was that I would only reveal my piece once it had won the prize and that if something else won the prize then no one would ever see my piece and be forever unsure if the right decision had been made.

I thought this was very clever. I imagined it would throw the judges into a quandary, wondering if they were making the right decision. What if they chose another piece and mine was better? They would forever wonder if they had been fools. I imagined this would haunt whoever beat me for the prize too. I could imagine the winner sitting at home, regarding their prize and wondering if it was really deserved. I could imagine the niggling the winner would feel for the rest of their lives. Winning the coveted Fasinex® Liver Fluke Drench Art Prize would be the crowning achievement of any career. Imagine the persistent gnawing that the prize might not be rightfully yours.

My mystery piece created quite a buzz. People speculated in the press and online as to what it might be. Someone suggested that my piece might even be the prize itself, which would be very clever in a reflexive interrogation of the very process itself type of way. Others said that the excitement generated by my stunt might be the art itself and that, if this was the case, my piece deserved to win because I had really got people thinking. 'Thinking about what?' others asked. 'Nothing', they were told. Yes, I had everyone thinking about nothing and this act in itself raised important questions – What is nothing? Why are we thinking about it? Do we think about nothing in other ways? Do we think about nothing a lot? Should we be thinking about other things? What other things should we be thinking about? Is there even a point in thinking? If there is a point in thinking, what is the point in thinking and if there is a point in thinking why haven't we thought of it before? 

Oh, I had sent the art world into a right cognitive whirlpool and no mistake.

But no, my art piece wasn't 'nothing' and it wasn't the prize itself. It was something else and this something else won.

The day came when, in front a celebrity audience that included the likes of Matthew Collings and Don Conroy, the esteemed President of the Irish Farmers' Association handed the Fasinex® Liver Fluke Drench Art Prize to me. I gave an acceptance speech, talking about how art has dominated my life since the day I decided to expand my investment portfolio and speaking of how my journey had brought me to this moment, receiving such a coveted prize from as venerable a man as the President of the Irish Farmers' Association. I wept a little too, I don't mind admitting. Then someone shouted up from the audience - it may have been Collings, it may have been Conroy, it might've even been Mary from Anything Goes. Whoever it was that shouted out, they got a chant going and the chant was this: 'show your art, show your art, show your art'. So I did what they demanded. After months of build up the crowd were extremely tense, all staring up in expectation, eyes wide and mouths a little open. I reached out and pulled back the curtain that obscured my piece. My art was revealed and those assembled were finally unburdened of their curiosity.

'But what was your piece?' 'What was it Mr. Fugger?' 'Tell us now for fuck's sake like!', I hear you, my readers and acolytes, insist from the other side of cyber space. Well, I'll tell you what my art piece was. I won't keep you in suspense any longer. To drag this out any more would be taking the piss and, as regular visitors to fugtheworld well know, I'm not one for piss taking. I'm not one to tease. I'll tell you what my piece was now before this gets irritating, perhaps even cruel. I'll tell you what my art was now before you get pissed off and just start speed reading to the end of this blog post to find out. So, without further ado, I will inform you what my art piece was. It was this – it was a laptop set on a plinth and on the screen of the laptop was a live webcast and the webcast was of you, yes you, you there, right now, at this very moment, sitting, reading a blog post called 'My Little Piece of Prize Winning Art'.

Nobody knew who you were or understood the significance of your being there. Everyone got a bit passionate. A bit angry. They came over all French and wine glasses were flung at the stage. I had to grab the laptop and flee but I'm safe now and I have you here with me. I'm looking at you as you read this very blog post. You, yes you, my little piece of prize winning art.

(There was a generous cash prize too but if you think I should share it with you you can piss off. You were all my idea.)

THINGS

You love things don't you? I've seen you, picking things up, looking at them and saying 'ooh, what lovely things'. Hallowed be thy things. You're a thing lover.

You're a thing lover and that suits me fine because I am going to give you things. I am going to give you things you really like and then I am going to threaten to take those things away from you again. That way, you will do whatever I say. 'Please, please, not my things', you'll beg before complying with whatever demand I make of you. You will do whatever I say because that way you will get to keep your things.

And you'll go about the world speaking of your things and comparing your things and belittling those without things and criticising them for wanting your things. And you will die and you will become ghosts and you will wander the earth wailing out to be reunited with your things. ‘Wheeeerrrrre aaaarrrrrreeee mmmmmmyyyyy thhhiiiiiiinnngs?’ And all the while, all during this lifetime and beyond, all during the time you spend thinging, you will never realise that these things were chains and that I put them on you and told you they were gifts. 

I'll never forget how you thanked me.

THE FUGGER INSTITUTE

I have a little black kettle and four large white mugs. How many of the large mugs can the little kettle fill? The answer is all four and the best part of a fifth - if I had a fifth, which I don't. I know all this because I carried out a test. I donned my lab coat and I did the research. I've looked into other things too. Which sells better, a good book or a rubbish book? I gathered the data. I put the data in the Datalizer and the Datalizer shat the results out on my Knowledge Carpet. I examined the pattern on the Knowledge Carpet and the answer is a rubbish book. Rubbish books sell better than good books. The same principle applies to films, music, all art in general, human beings and, somewhat strangely, biscuits. Price difference might account for the latter. I'll have to add that factor to future computations.

These are the kinds of activities that take place at The Fugger Institute. It is here that I and my team search for answers and it is here that we get results. The Fugger Institute is a hub of discovery and invention. It was The Fugger Institute that developed the The Quorak Curve. The Quorak Curve gives an entirely representative representation of entirely representative things. Very useful if you want to represent something or see something represented. We also facilitated Professor Benjamin Wellum in his development of the now famous Wellum's Theorem, a theorem that clearly proves that Wellum had a theorem. Another of my favorites is The Randomizer. By throwing random things together randomly, The Randomizer does random things, producing random results. It's very reliable. In fact, the randomness of The Randomizer is, statistically speaking, the least random thing in the Universe. This indicates that we inhabit a reality that is fundamentally ironic and probably taking the piss. Now, if I can get reality to take this piss on my Knowledge Carpet so I can view the pattern it leaves, I might just discover the key to all of space-time. Wouldn't that be nice?

Amongst our more recent inventions and thought experiments is something we call The Intention Hat. The Intention Hat is an uncomfortable hat that gives everyone who wears it the same intention. That intention being the intention to take the hat off. You may consider these results obvious but to us they are fascinating – fascinatingly obvious. Why are things obvious? That is what we are really looking into here. What is obvious? Why are some things not obvious? How can we make everything obvious so that there is no more confusion in the world? Not so 'obvious' now is it? The Intention Hat inspired us to start work on something we call The Obviousualizer. The Obviousualizer will basically be a pair of goggles and when you look through them the Universe will be stripped of its mystery. A member of staff recently donned a prototype and instantly lost his mind so we've got rough edges to sort out there.

Have I mentioned The Neuroticon yet? The Neuroticon is a large catalogue of neurotic conditions that can be instantly contracted just by reading about them. The man who compiled it mentally disintegrated under the weight of his knowledge. Since he completed the catalogue it has never been opened and is kept locked in a safe that no one knows the combination to. However, intrigued by the contents of The Neuroticon, The Fugger Institute is working on the Neuroticon Codebreaker, software that will provide us with the combination to the safe. Opening the safe will of course be dangerous seeing as The Neuroticon is in there so The Fugger Institute is also working on the Codebreaker Virus that will render the Neuroticon Codebreaker inoperable. Needless to say, The Fugger Institute is in the early stages of developing more software that protects the Neuroticon Codebreaker from the virus.

The thing we are working on that excites me most is Love Money. Love Money is not an object but actually a school of thought that intends to replace all the world's currencies with love. Instead of pieces of paper and coins, our fundamental form of exchange will be to treat others as we ourselves would like to be treated. This will help us understand that love for humanity is not some vague hippyish aspiration but actually an innate and pragmatic force that ensures stability and common well-being. Love Money will also prevent the concept of love from being confused with the incredibly pleasant but ultimately selfish and hideously conditional sexual infatuation that is celebrated in American films and popular music.

Another couple of things that can be found at the institute are The Monkey Chamber, a chamber that The Fugger Institute keeps its monkeys in, and Fuzzy Felt.

These last two items are not so impressive and the latter may have already been invented but what the hell, it's great fun and surely that's what it's all about at the end of the day. But what is fun? Maybe we should look into that. It's an interesting question. Hmmm, are games fun? What if they become too competitive and the participants become upset? Is that fun? If not why do it? Some say it's character building but you'd want to be building a pretty strange character. Speaking of strange characters, Benji Wellum proposed that we investigate how many large white mugs it would take to fill my little black kettle. I pointed out that the result would be almost five as a new experiment would merely be the one I carried out earlier in reverse. However, Wellum asked if the reverse is always the inverse of the forward and when I said I wasn't sure what he meant he turned the kettle upside down and concluded that it couldn't be filled at all. As I watched Benji dementedly pour filled mugs onto an upside down kettle, it occurred to me that maybe some minds inquire too much. Can inquiring burn out your wiring? This question is laced with irony because asking it invites the possible burn out the question warns against. I suppose that's reality again, taking the piss.

****

Hmmm. The human mind. The questions it asks. The lengths it goes to answer them. Then these answers lead to more questions and so on and so on, forever, without end, into the infinite circle and back to where it left off, the very start, the Ouroboros eats its tail because further discovery usually reveals that previous discovery was wrong and so everything must be discovered again. Oh yes, inquiry and discovery, looping, arcing, spiraling in a never ending game. A game someone or something must have invented ...for 'fun'.

'The divine is hidden from the people according to the wisdom of the Lord.'

BILL CULLEN ON DMT

He's finally going to outer space. Outer space and inner space and every other conceivable space. Gob agape. A transcendent smile. A trillion yard stare. Looking beyond everything and seeing all. Eyes shining, bulging, bright and white. Maybe the hint of a tear. He sees into the heart of existence and now he knows EVERYTHING. EeeeVeeeRrrrrrrrYyyyyTHhhhhhhIiiiiiiiNnngg. Oh yes indeed, it's a long way from penny apples you are now Bill.

Running through the meadows of Kildare. A cosmic conglomerate. All is one. What are fences but defences? Defences against oneness, wholeness, indivisibility. Fuck fences. Bill leaps fences. Bollock naked as nature intended. Dogs bark. Birds chirp. The Universe is singing and Bill is part of the tune, dancing from note to note. Immersed in Oceanic Feeling. He's making plans, new and different to any he's made before. He'll fill the Muckross Park Hotel with badgers and squirrels and foxes and rabbits and owls and hares and lobsters, yeah, lobsters. Nature's residents. Eden anew. He'll flood the tennis court at winter and skate upon the ice. He remembers the mixed doubles, him and Jackie versus Gerard and Lisa, tension and concentration, competition, but no more of that. No more winners and losers. One does not have to outdo the other to be the best one can be - one is the other and that's the best both can possibly be. It's a non-zero-sum game and Bill sees that now. Bill sees so much now. Bill sees it all now. The Now! Before and later, all of it together, all of it Now!

Jaysus, he can't wait to tell Jackie about this.

Sunlight plunges through leaves spilling shadows on the earth and the shadows spring and flee and are imbued with mysterious volition. They giggle and squeal and chide, but only playfully. They banish the diminished remains of Bill's ego. Bill isn't in charge here. Bill is being shown the way by entities both apart from him and a part of him. His new board of directors - spirits, elves, pixies, the Sidhe, guiding him on a new venture. He's everywhere and nowhere because everywhere is nowhere. He's all over the place even though there's no place to be all over. It's hard for him to explain. He tries. He really does try. Bill babbles like a brook and water pours out of his mouth from the corners. His tongue tastes funny. He can feel it now, the weight of it in his mouth, moving. He's using it. He's speaking again.

'How bonny are the banks of the Lucinda River.'

...What?

Where did that come from?

Why did he say that? What else has he been saying?

...and where is he now? He's coming into land. He's suddenly back. He's down again. He's slipped from the Elysium of Kildare and slid into a waste in Wicklow. He's sat there in the mildewy lobby of the Muckross. What was he thinking? He couldn't fill the place with creatures even if he wanted to. Bastard receivership. Why had the Universe turned its back on him? He used to be right in the middle of it and now... what had Bill done wrong? He worked hard and dreamed big. Weren't they the rules of the game? Nothing turned out how it was meant to. Nothing turned out how it was meant to be. Nothing turned out how he wanted. That's what he keeps saying, bewildered and staggering, escorted to the exit. Shown the way out and locked out. How did he get here? Jackie's not answering her mobile. Feck. He'll have to walk. He looks up and sees a searing circular sun cruelly branded into a tortured sky. Why does it give no heat? Why is it so cold?

Bill struggles to remember what it was he was thinking when he smoked that stuff. He can't recall. Some nonsense. Some rubbish. Some Wizard of Oz thing. That reminds him... he searches his pockets for the complementaries to Wicked in the O2 but he's got no pockets. Where'd he leave his jacket when he stripped off? Bare and bereft. He lost his mind and he's lost the tickets. Front row and all. He's lost the bloody tickets just like he lost the dealership and the hotel. He's lost the lot. He's lost it all. Well, it won't be staying lost. Oh no. Down but not out. No longer high but looking up. You can't keep a good man down. The boy he was. The man he became and will be again. He is a splendid thing, noble and striding. Oh yes. 'I'm on me way home Jackie!'

Then he's splashed. Mud from the side of a country road. All down his front. A car speeds by. Inconsiderate bastard. Bill peers to get a decent look. Wouldn't you fucking know it, the car's a Renault. He's sick of this country. He's been told of a happier place. Ayahuasca. 'Never heard of it but I'll sink a load of it. Sure why not?' 

Bill Cullen - from penny apples to God knows where.

PINGBACK IN THE AFTERLIFE

Remember when the internet died? Remember that? The day it all went down and never got back up. You lot didn't know what to do with yourselves. You were all addicted to the internet. All of you. (I wasn't, I just liked it so much I used it all the time.) You lot didn't know what to do without your Facebook updates. You couldn't imagine how you'd get by with no one Twittering your hashtags or admiring your selfies.

Some of you started improvising, shouting out your Tweets to passersby. You opened the windows of your homes and roared out things like 'I watched the new Marvel comics movie last night and it sucked!' The nasty anonymous trolls amongst you improvised too, popping out from behind corners, wearing balaclavas and shouting things like 'I'm glad your family died in a fire'. The end of Chatroulette also meant the return of flashers to our public parks. Those guys didn't get many 'likes' I'll tell you that. Likes were now conveyed when somebody passed you on the street and roared something at you and you gave them a thumbs up before rapidly moving on without really engaging. When someone did force others to 'engage' they were usually met with the acronym TLDL (too long, didn't listen) but when someone was brief and to the point, saying something that didn't really have a point because what's the point in that, they got the post-internet version of a retweet - as in they'd roar something and cause a person who heard them to roar out exactly the same thing whilst pointing a finger at the person who roared it in the first place. A couple of long held Facebook traditions were also maintained with people saying they'd attend events they were invited to and then not attending them and people allowing others insight into their private lives in the post-Facebook way of leaving their keys out for others to gain access to their homes and have a look around - once the home had been specifically altered so all the right things were left lying about to make the home owner look tasteful, sophisticated, well-adjusted and all that kind of shit.

Oh, what a superficial bunch of sorry cun... Jesus, I almost typed that out loud?

Anyway, this continued for a while until everyone started to feel a bit silly and strangely empty. Remember that, when you started feeling a bit daft and redundant? Remember how it got to the stage where you lot didn't know what to say to each other or how to act around each other? Problem was that everyone eventually realised there was nothing to share or react to. You had to start instigating and you'd forgotten how to do that without the use of a modem. It was impossible to make things go viral. Al Qaeda and affiliates even stopped beheading infidels. There didn't seem to be a point if they couldn't upload it. People wandered the streets forlorn. It seemed a cold world without all the liking and sharing. The internet was gone and in its place was nothing. Nothing at all. There was just the sound of the wind and that's a scary distant sound that reminds you that the world keeps doing its own thing and you don't matter all that much. I find that notion comforting myself but I suppose that's just me.

So, that's it. Our over reliance on the web made culture tabula rasa. I suppose our generation will die out. We'll exit this life like socially awkward guests leaving a crap party. The future generations will have to create the cultural content of the future anew. I wonder what they'll come up with. I wonder will it just be the same kind of thing all over again. Is all the need for attention in our DNA? Anonymous internet trolling, is there a gene for that? We'll have to wait and see. Not that we'll be around to see it. I don't know though, maybe we'll get some kind of pingback in the afterlife.

MORE NONSENSE

(pictured above – Aonghus wearing earrings Mary made him)

It's just random observations and memories today. I don't feel like drawing them together into some contrived whole. Life is just a series of unrelated sensations and reactions anyway. Narrative cohesion is an ex post facto lie you tell yourself. At least that's what Aonghus McAnally kept saying on Anything Goes when I was a small boy and I've found it to be true ever since.

So, um, here goes I suppose...

I used to own a cat that used a dog I used to own as a horse. I videoed them and tried to upload the footage to Youtube but it was 1989 and the Internet hadn't been invented yet.

Silly of me really. I should have known. I didn't even have a computer.

...anyway...

Did you know that if you crush butterflies into a paste and spread it on a sandwich and eat it you can fly out the window?

Yeah, ...seriously, I swear...

Ah no, that was just a dream you had. Can you remember it? Maybe you haven't had it yet. Maybe you'll have it tonight because you read about it here. Either way, it's your dream.

Speaking of Anything Goes do you remember Mary? She used to show you how to make things out of bird skulls and marla and all that kind of thing. I remember this time she was dressed up as a sexy magician's assistant – heels and fishnets. That was probably the first time in my life I found myself muttering the words 'not bad, not bad at all'. I've probably muttered those words to myself about eight or nine billion times since. Mainly when I'm remembering Mary in the fishnets.

That's a true story that, not that that's really a story.

Hmmm. They probably still have the footage of Mary wearing the gear in the RTE archive somewhere. Someone should really fish it out. They could release it on DVD. I'd buy it or download it illegally at least.

...so, you know, ...that's an idea anyway...

Did I tell that I was recently denied a blood transfusion because I don't use Google+? Yeah, I was. 'Fair enough', I didn't think to myself. You wouldn't have thought that either if it happened to you.

I also hear that CNN is changing its name to Fox News Lite. They say the rebrand will help make it clear that they're not nearly as mad but basically the same. 'Fair enough', I do think to myself there.

Ryan Tubridy was talking angrily into his mobile the other day and I heard him saying the words: 'I've fucking had it with the Scheler Concept of Ressentiment'. That's what he said. Those exact words almost exactly. I think. I'm not sure. I wasn't there. I was somewhere else. But I was speaking to him on his mobile at the time and that's how I know it's true.

Did you know that the Communications and Management Institute Dublin are awarding diplomas in something called Psycholinguistic Subterfuge? Yeah, they are. Apparently there's a lot of employment opportunities in that area. Whatever that area is.

...still, nice to earn an honest wage.

So, tell me, is the kid in the picture above cute or creepy? I can't decide. Cutely creepy? Creepily cute? Who knows? Maybe if we close our eyes she'll go away. Close your eyes then and I will too and we'll open them after a count of three and hopefully she'll be gone. Ready? OK, let's do it. One, two, ...thrrrreeee. Open your eyes!

Fuck, she's still there.

Hold on, you didn't close your eyes. You cheated!

Ah, don't worry. I didn't close my eyes either. I tend not to close my eyes anymore. You never know what'll be there when you reopen them.

So, that's about it for today. I hope you enjoyed it. I'll probably be writing about the future of internet in the next post, now that it's been invented, but that's it for today ...unless, ...did I tell you about Mary in the fishnets?

I did?

Oh yeah, I see it up there near the top of the post.

OK so, you can go but don't forget to come back. If you don't keep visiting Fugger you'll end up spending your time elsewhere and getting indoctrinated into notions that life makes sense, which it doesn't. That's just more nonsense.

So, it's goodbye for now then.

You know I love you very much.

Especially when you're in your magician's assistant gear.

Not bad, not bad at all.

(That post was probably inspired by Bumhand's spamming on the JPRBDF)

ANIMALS DOWN THE SHOPS

Animals, what good are they? They just hang around making noises and doing shits on things. Let's put them to some use. Let's get them spending. Let's get animals down the shops. Let's train animals to buy and get them contributing to the economy. They aren't contributing in their own trivial little ecosystem so it's time to get them involved in the real system. Train them to work and earn and consume. They'll learn to love it. Magpies already like shiny things.

Just think of the business we could drum up: furniture for bird nests, shoes for spiders, wigs for bald eagles, contact lenses for bats, mittens for lobsters, lingerie for dogs. Enough with the feral, let's get financial! Creature consumers consuming creature comforts! I can see the cash flooding into our pockets now!

Let's make animals hate themselves so they'll buy stuff to like themselves more. Let's make birds ashamed of their wings. We'll make birds believe that flying is a lot of exertion and embarrassingly old fashioned. We'll get them to see their wings as ugly twitchy flaps. That way we can sell them airplane tickets and specially designed jackets that hide their foul feathery appendages. Let's make it so ants want to be individuals. We could make hats for ants and they could all get different types so that they feel unique - cowboy hats, bowler hats, baseball caps. They'll probably still behave the same way, all regimented and routined, but they'll perceive themselves to be free spirits and perception is all that matters in this post-reality age.

'Rhinos, reindeer and gnus of the wild, what are those horns and antlers upon your heads but elaborate head warts and cranial verrucas? Worry not, a pricy yet inexpensive procedure will be made available so you can be shorn of your unsightly shame.' 

That's the way we should be talking to beasts. The animal kingdom is an untapped market. The way to get them shopping is to make them ashamed of their fur and beaks and primitive abodes. We'll have them eating out of our hands and filling our bank accounts.

I think it's a great idea and I've been trying to get things up and running for a while now. Ten years ago I had a goldfish and I convinced it that it really should be silver, like other normal fish. I made him really ashamed of his crass and flashy colouring so he set about earning money to buy a form of scale dye I'd developed. He earned his money by doing tricks, allowing Steve-O from Jackass drink him and puke him back out into his bowl, that kind of thing. Sadly the acclaim the fish received went to his head. The combination of adulation and self-loathing made him a very confused little fish. He ended up spending all his money on drugs and passed away in a motel room. That's the danger of excess. What a waste of life. A potential consumer no more. I didn't know what to do with all the bottles of scale dye I was left with but then I had a bright idea and sold the stuff to chameleons. I told them they needed it to get themselves 'noticed'.

Oh yeah, and another time I sold a rasher sandwich to a pig. He didn't really enjoy it but apparently eating it made him feel more 'human'.