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So, Golfgate. Clichéd catchphrases are emerging so fast it’s hard to keep up. But I mean, seriously, 81 of the great and good, or former great and good, being complete and utter arrogant plonkers, couldn’t happen in a Sheridan farce. My question now why is only one, the arrogant Lord Hogan, being asked to consider his position? All of those still serving in office need to be asked to go. All of those retired on public pensions ought to make a contribution to the “poor box”. I notice there is no mention of a woman anywhere, no woman would be that insensitive or thick not to understand the implication of their actions. In all my training as a professional, the framework of “modelling” was paramount as a means of learning and teaching. Does something happen people who enter through the gates of Leinster House where some part of the brains are wiped and a reprogramming happens between the gate and the front door?
I have my own share of awfulness and stupidities and blips and downright wrongful behaviour. It was always hard to come to realise and accept the consequences of my behaviour but I would get there either choosing or dragged kicking and screaming.
I don’t hear 81 regrets and I don’t believe the apologies and it couldn’t happen at a worse time for the credibility of a fragile Government. Nor do I place any meas on the whining and shouting from the opposition benches. There is no evidence of any intelligent functioning inside those Kildare Street gates. Rant completed!
I am doing a writing sequence and it happened that at this time I am confronted by the Greek gods about whom I know absolutely nothing or very little. So with a little effort, the following emerged.
Read, enjoy, share, send me some feedback to keep me somewhat honest.
Aug. 23, 2020
My good friend Leo Smyth offered this as a reposte so I feel it should be included-
- ah, for God’s sake, it was only a game of golf. I mean what’s a game of golf without a couple of pints and a few chips afterwards.
- fuck the begrudgers, is what I say. We were socially distanced out on the course…
- you were socially distanced from that ninth hole!
- shag off! We nearly had to delay the dinner with the time you spent in the bunker.
- didn’t make any difference, the smoked salmon was cold anyway.
- the real question is, who let that prick from the Examiner in?
- I thought JohnJoe was looking after security.
- yeah, but he forgot about the waiters.
- it’s the real waiters I’m worried about, where are they going to get their ten Euros an hour now?
- cause unemployment that’s all that’ll happen.
- pity all the same they didn’t keep the partition shut. Could have got away with it.
- there were still ten people at the table.
- not all the time, there weren’t, between going for a piss and pressing the flesh sure we were up and down like yo-yos.
- that’s no way to describe us! We were only networking in the interests of the nation.
- pity about Dara, though. I heard he was up all night working on that speech about your man.
- I bet he was up all night the following night as well.
- ah, it’s tough at the top.
- aye, politics can be a cruel business.
- that’s because of the fucking voters, really, when you get down to it.
- don’t forget the reporters! Voters and reporters are a drain on the leadership of the country.
- I suppose we’d better get on with the press release. What have you got so far?
- it is as it is.
- shouldn’t that be it was what it was?
- that’d only confuse people, better to stick with what they know.
- how about: we can learn from this, going forward….
- that’s always a winner. Will you have another?
- ah no, it sets a bad example to the driver if I fall asleep.
Leo Smyth
23rd August 2020
Comments
Anne Gilleran
23.08.2020 22:40
Yes defintely send it to the times. Only a game of golf my arse, probably an all male golf club
A week is a long time they say.....
Pauline Flynn
23.08.2020 16:55
Excellent Peter. Great way to get to know the Greek Gods and all their foibles.
Clíodhna
23.08.2020 13:47
Absolutely brilliant! Send it in to the Irish Times!
Margaret Dromey
23.08.2020 13:27
I loved this piece Peter - had a great laugh. Was is it not Artemis whose resignation Zeus sought though? Hope you send it to the powers that be!!!
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Margaret D
23.08.2020 18:09
Hear, hear Cliodhna - yes Peter send it to the Irish Times.
Triona
23.08.2020 13:19
Peter, that is great, very clever and fun.
Latest comments
25.11 | 22:15
Grief is experience through the mundane. Simple but powerful. The accompanying image really compliments the poem.
07.11 | 11:14
Hi Peter,
A great observation! Social media can be a scary place... I also need to reduce my time there
Hugs,
John.x
06.11 | 16:24
A great one, Peter, in the context you describe. I don't read social media myself, I doubt my equilibrium could stand it. 'The balance of his mind disturbed' yes, I think it would be.
06.11 | 15:59
Yes, gossip is a weapon of mass destruction.
In my business as well as personal life I have zero tolerance.
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And What About . . .
I have neglected this for far too long, and now it is time again. But what to write about, what poem to share? The world is packed with catastrophic possibilities. Such choices: dementia/genocide colluder or extreme narcissism in the White House; a hung parliament in the UK; the reunification of the USSR with a tyrannical megalomaniac at its head; the eradication of a race by a genocidal government in Gaza; the African continent reduced to bankruptcy and regression to male tribalism; in Ireland, even with an appalling electoral turnout the routing of the far right and Sinn Féin may offer some comfort except we face another FF/FG fiasco. Mother Nature rumbles on its rampage, raging against the human species’ abject destruction of the planet’s habitat. What the . . .
Being facetious right now is my only defence against absolute despair. So read, comment, pass it on, and send feedback.
City Walking and Cycling take 680,000
cars per day off the road
Irish Time Heading
More and more folk, cycling and walking, may
keep gases from greenhouses further at bay
This newspaper heading illustrates vividly
thousands of cyclists and walkers assiduously
stopping some cars on their journey
pushing them aside - making drivers quite surly
Mountains of metal - like scrapyards of sculpture
keep bicycle lanes quite safe - at this juncture
The new revolution is well underway
don’t get behind wheels - hear what they say:
Cars and their fumes play a very big part
the smell is quite phew don’t mention cow farts
Wear out your shoe leather walking
greet travellers with smiles while you’re talking
Force councils to make better spaces
to go out and about roaming those places
where vitamin D, and oxygen from trees
fill our lungs and our brains so we see
how to save us and this magical planet
except for some vicious old tyrants goddammit
Peter Clarke, 18th March 2024
