Circa Spring 2006

The glaring differences between the Octopus and it’s humble land-living cousin, the domestic two legged cat, have always fascinated me. I think they are a perfect example of how the adult self is formed by nurture, not nature. Put an animal on land, where it has almost unlimited access to old ladies who’ll feed them cow’s milk at least daily, and place it’s cousin in the sea, where there is absolutely no access whatsoever to dairy products, and watch what happens.

The sea-dwelling pus grows no less than four extra legs. It begs the question, why on earth do we listen to nutritionists when they tell us that milk is necessary for a sufficient supply of calcium to keep our skeletons healthy? Let me clear this alleged scientific fact up once and for all in a simple table.

Species	Daily Milk Intake (pints)	No. of Legs	Leg:Body Ratio
Domestic Cat (Land pus)	2*	4	4:1
Octupus	0	8	8:1
.
(*source: my left ventricle)

I think we can see clearly that milk is very bad for your bones. Besides which, milk comes out of a cow’s ass and is full of crap. If you must consume a beverage that is sourced from an animal’s ass, at least select a species that has high standards of hygiene.

A cat, for example.

Personally, I think the Vegans are the only people who’ve got it right. In Vegania, they had a war several years ago that wiped out all but the most aggressive of animals. And ever since, Vegans have been afraid of the remaining farm animals, so they just let them be. Frankly, they’re a bunch of pussies, but they’ve got beautiful creamy skin and their bowel movements are as regular as clockwork.

I’ve always believed it was important to have well-disciplined digestive organs. You can’t have a situation whereby your ass just lets loose whenever it feels like it. Especially if you’re about to buy a lovely new house and plan on putting a lot of nice new furniture in it.

So I’m thinking I might cut down on my fibre intake, and eat less carpet. That’s why we’ve decided to get either tiles or wooden floor-coverings in all of the rooms. Wood is natural stuff from trees, so it’s pretty much a vegetable, and I don’t know what tiles are made of but I’m almost certain they don’t come out of a cow’s ass, because they’ve got very sharp edges. That’s why I’ve never understood the attraction with Toblerones. Or tortilla chips, for that matter.

Give me a nice round, smooth apple or orange any day, and I’ll give you some nice, harmless pain free brown liquidy stuff. I love making smoothies. Besides, where the hell are you going to find vitamin “C” in a piece of cow excrement? Don’t kid yourself – any cow that has been intelligent enough to eat oranges all it’s life, sure as hell isn’t going to allow itself to end up in an abattoir.

Although as I write that, it occurs to me that I used to live in a housing estate called Applewood Heights, and there was an abattoir at the bottom of the road. And there were no apples left. Apparently they were all used up a long time ago.

Now, I’m not sure whether that proves or disproves my theory about cows and vitamin “C”, but it says a hell of a lot about the vulgar extravagance of the people who used to live in that town. Wood is a precious enough natural commodity already, but when you think of the tiny amount of wood that is in the stalk of an apple, and imagine how many of those you would need to create a piece of Apple Wood furniture, you have to be ashamed to be human.

Little wonder then, that we all go around dressed in the skins of other animals, in a feeble attempt to disguise the fact that we are members of a race that has been famous since the beginning of time for commiting sins involving apples. And bananas of courses, but there’s no mention of that in the bible, is there? Of course not – the Creationists and religious zealots don’t want us to know that we used to have a lot of bananas, as that would prove that we evolved from apes.

Circa 2005. Apparently from one of my “edgy” phases.

I’ve recently come to realise that the cheapest option is not always the best. I learned this when I bought an inflatable deathbed, which I used during my recent illness. The rusty nails that were in my throat at the time apparently punctured the airbed, and as a result I am still alive. I blame shoddy workmanship. Nails should not go rusty in your throat, if your throat is dry.

Anyway, to make a long story short, I’ll leave out the bit that introduces all of the characters and paints a picture of their surroundings. Then I’ll send it to an editor and have them shorten it further. If that doesn’t work, I’ll break it into two parts, like Quentin Tarantino’s “Kill Bill”.

I must say I enjoyed that film immensely. Mainly because there was plenty of yellow in it. I like yellow. Yellow summons up images of suns and flowers and dairy by-products and all sorts of wonderful things, but apart from that, the very word itself contains a wonderful contrast.

The two words “yell” and “low”, which of course are complete opposites. You cannot yell and be “low” at the same time, unless of course “low” refers to your physical location rather than the pitch of your voice.

For example, you could be yelling at the bottom of a canyon. Even then, though, you would have to be sure that the bottom of the canyon is below sea level. Otherwise you’re not low. And how on earth are you going to be able to measure your position relative to sea level, when something that you yelled three minutes ago is still echoing off the canyon walls and distracting you?

Canyons of course themselves contain a similar contradiction.

You clearly cannot be “cany” and “on” at the same time. If you do, you’ll do yourself an injury, end up attempting to sue me for some vague thing that your dodgy lawyer comes up with, and get laughed out of court. And it serves you right. If you want a quick buck, you should get yourself a more legitimate source, like a pyramid scheme or something.

There are still countless pyramids in Egypt waiting for a sponsor, and instead of supporting them with a clever and intricate system of chain e-mails, you are wasting your time trying to pursue a canyon-related writ that stands no chance of success.

You fucking idiot.

Besides, the only thing of any value that has ever happened in a canyon has involved the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote, both of whom are fictional characters and therefore of no meaning in our real world. And even if they were not fictional, they would still be two-dimensional, so they could hide from you instantly just by standing at a 180 degree angle from you, rendering them invisible.

Not that an added dimension would be likely to make these creations any more credible. The only way of adding a dimension to a cartoon character is to turn it into a puppet, and then we’re talking about some guy’s hand up your ass. The only person who could put his hand up your ass with any credibility was the late Jim Henson. And he’s dead. Although I’m sure his son could re-animate him with the help of a few strings and a suitable stuffing.

Personally I think Christopher Reeve said it best, when he said “The Muppets were cool. I watch Pigs in Space and I think, some day that will be me. As soon as I recover from this damn horse-riding injury. I’m going to make another Superman movie too, you know. Just give me another few months and I’ll untangle all these nerve-endings with my Swiss army knife. Did you know I was in the Swiss army? Neither did I, but I must have been, because I seem to have one of their knives.

I wonder did I suffer some memory loss too? I asked the doctor but I can’t recall what he told me. Anyway, another few months and I’ll be right as rain.”

Circa 2006

Here in Europe the oversupply of turnips, after twenty years of agricultural incentives offered by the European Union for growing them, has reached epic proportions.

It is not literally a mountain of course. That would be impractical, as the temperature at the summit would be far lower than is feasable for the storage of such produce. Besides, the streams created by rainfall would destroy much of the food, particularly if there are otters.

The excess turnips are in fact kept in huge holes in the ground at strategically selected locations in The Netherlands, a country renowned for it’s unrelenting hostility to mountains of all kinds, and therefore a nation of experts on concealed underground storage.

The Dutch have a wonderful obsession with keeping things flat. They of course invented many of the low-roofed, aerodynamically shaped sports cars which we see in our shopping centre car parks today. Car parks which themselves were completely level until a few years ago, when lack of space finally compelled them to reluctantly allow the building of multi storey car parks.

Even these are placed under the ground if at all possible, and ceiling height is kept to a minimum, as is floor height.

Here in Ireland it’s a whole different story.

Not only is Dublin now flagged by an eponymous mountain range to the west, the city itself is being populated with vast eight and nine story skyscrapers, much to the chagrin of environmentalists who know that such monstrosities only serve to force clouds higher into the sky, right into the flightpath of the average jumbo jet, thereby increasing the likelihood that such aircraft will have to waste extra precious fuel in revving up their vast engines and forcing their way through a domineering Cirrocumulus.

I’ve always wondered why the air industry doesn’t take a leaf out of the Navy’s book, and rather than wasting money on huge airports, instead land on flying aircraft carriers. Passengers could then be shuttled to the ground in helicopters, in much the same way that they are often bussed from the plane to the terminal at traditional airports.

Another obvious alternative is underground travel.

Britain and France have made a brave attempt at it by drilling a railway tunnel under the sea to connect their countries. But due to the curvature of the earth, a horizontal tunnel can only go a few hundred miles straight before it comes out again.

What we need are tunnels that go straight down, or decline at steep angles, until they come out at some other part of the world. We could then travel by an extremely efficient cable car which would simply fall to it’s destination, then fall back again.

Why DaVinci didn’t think of this when he was doodling plans for a flying machine, I have no idea. Perhaps it’s because he worked with paintbrushes and not apples, and therefore did not have many incidences of anything falling on his head during his work, thus inspiring him to consider the possibilities of harnessing gravity.

We really do need more gravity in this world. People are too damn giddy and obsessed with enjoying themselves. A little levitas is sadly lacking, and as far as I’m concerned it all started with bungee jumping.

The organisers of this so-called sport have managed to use clever marketing and branding to con the participants into thinking that they are “jumping”, thereby instilling them with the mistaken belief that they are contributing to the amount of kinetic energy in the atmosphere in an environmentally friendly hobby.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

A bungee “jump” is ninety nine percent “fall”, two percent “jump”, one percent “getting rescued”.

Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. If they try, put at least one finger in each of your ears and, if necessary, pretend that you’ve got a learning disability. Taking care of course not to do it in a way that portrays a stereotypical image of those who are genuinely afflicted with such a condition.

Anyway, let’s finish off with a poem, shall we.

A cat or a puppy – oh what a choice
One brings you walkies, the other kills mice
If only the breeders could open their eyes
And come up with some sort of a compromise

More fine poetry here

Neal’s Belch no. 182 for 15th Dec 2004

The Greek god Alpha Medes said it best, when he said “Cast not a thought for the wretched in June, for they will be dead in February”. The Greek calendar of course runs backwards, so February is later in the year than June.

Unless of course he was talking about February of the following year. But had he meant that, I think he would have made it clear. Greek gods aren’t stupid, you know. Except of course the Greek god of Stupidity. But that sort of goes with the territory.

Anyway, my favorite month of the year has always, always been March. For one thing, I love the military air suggested by the month’s title, and the fleeting reference to the novel “Alice in Wonderland”. But apart from that, I just find that March rolls along nice and steadily, and before you know it it’s April, which happens to be the month I like best.

Come to think of it, May isn’t too bad either, if you can get around the fact that it’s named after a fly.

Not that I have anything against flies. Not in their plural form, anyway. It’s just that I object strongly to the singular, “fly”. I find it so obnoxious for anything to have the letter y in it. There are plenty of common letters in the alphabet, which can be combined in hundreds of thousands of combinations. So there is no reason for any of us to resort to using the last few letters. Especially not Y or Z. Let’s not lower ourselves to the vulgar standards of those who suffer, through their own poor dietary habits, from verbal diahorrea.

Even worse are those who suffer from the more practical forms of this disorder. Countless millions have been wasted; poured into holes in the ground because certain co-coordinators at NASA with more influence than sense, have decided to go the “scenic route” to mars, instead of traveling in a straight line and just veering slightly to the left if an asteroid gets in the way.

Personally, I think Adam West, start of the original Batman television series, said it best when he said “Ask not how the void can be increased to make time greater, ask how the existing time can be more richly employed”. Admittedly he was speaking in the context of a symposium of TV scheduling managers, almost all of whom found his statement ridiculous, but you see my point, don’t you?

When I was a child, the highlight of the television week was The Muppet Show, and it lasted approximately eighteen minutes per episode, not counting advertisements. Yet it took almost half an hour to watch the show, despite the rewind and pause buttons not having been invented for television yet. This has baffled scientists for many years, and the eminent astrologist Professor Stephen Hawkins has predicted that it will continue to do so for a few more years, unless Libra makes good use of a rising Pisces moon in the south next week.

Which, knowing Libra, he probably won’t.

Circa 2005

I must say that, having been to see the new movie “Walk the Line”, based on the biography of Johnny Cash, a long-held bitterness about the world’s attitude to white vests has been reawakened in me. For those who don’t know, this all started a number of years ago when I spent a Summer working as a sock model for an underwear manufacturer here on the east coast of Ireland.

You are probably not aware that there are two completely different ways of making string vests. The traditional method, of course, involves simply knitting the vest from a long roll of white string. This was perfectly adequate for many centuries, when the only cats were tigers and lions who lived far away in the jungle, and were of no particular threat to the average male whose string vest had a loose thread. When wild cats wanted some string to play with, then just had to go find themselves a sheep.

Then of course, somebody invented the domestic cat. And everything unravelled. So the clothes designers came up with a new idea. Most modern string vests are made by punching a series of holes in a plain white t-shirt, until it becomes effectively a string vest, with the advantage of not being made from a ball of string. Now, these vests bear absolutely no relation to the awful string vests of the early twentieth century, yet apparently it is “uncool” to be seen wearing one.

However, if the aforementioned movie is to be believed, Johnny Cash’s career was going reasonably well until he ditched his cool white vests and started to dress entirely in black. A feeble attempt, of course, to turn himself into an artificial black cat, thereby attracting good luck. However, Mr. Cash apparently misunderstood the concept of “crossing your path”. Rather than traversing the carriageway directly from one side to the other, as any competent black cat will do, Cash decided to stop halfway across, then, in a pathetic attempt to outdo his feline heroes, he “Walked the Line”.

The result of course was Cash’s infamous arrest for jaywalking, followed by a spell in prison. And rightly so. But the point is, Johnny Cash has recently attracted a new generation of young fans, despite having been seen blatantly wearing a white vest on at least two occasions, as depicted in this authorised biographical movie. Not only that, there have been several films over the years in which vest wearers have been depicted as tremendously cool and macho – Martin Sheen in “Wall Street”, for example, and that guy in “Rambo”.

And Bruce Willis in pretty much everything, except of course “The Sixth Sense”, in which he played a **** ***. (I’ve deleted a couple of words here in case you haven’t seen the film yet). Those guys don’t wear vests because if they did, you would be able to see their decomposing arms, and that would distract you from what they are saying. There’s nothing more irritating than having someone stare at your decomposing elbows, when you’re trying to gaze into their eyes and tell them how much they love you.

Actually, now that you mention it, maybe that’s why my fiancée Joanne won’t let me wear vests. It must have been when I tripped over that puppy last month. It did hurt at the time, but I’m not a cry baby so I didn’t check myself into a mortuary or anything.

Anyway the point is, I’ve never managed to get the hang of these damn subtle differences between the real world and the word of make-believe. I mean, last night I dreamed that I was eating a cat. Yet, when I woke up, I was ravenously hungry. That’s ridiculous. There must have been at least a half pound of meat on that thing. But of course a dream interpreter will charge you a week’s wages to tell you that the cat whose meat you ate in the dream was made of “black matter”, like the stuff they’ve discovered in black holes in space (see figure 2, above) so it just makes your stomach even less full than it was before you started the dream.

Then you pay another week’s wages to a nutritionist, who’ll tell you cats don’t contain enough vitamin “C”, and you’d better buy a bucket of these orange tablets or you’ll die. Well, I didn’t buy them, and I’m still here. Instead, I fed them to my neighbour’s black cat. My experience with the dream interpreter has led me to believe that a black cat is some sort of creature that’s made from anti-matter. If that’s the case, they probably spend their entire day getting hungrier and hungrier. Poor bastards. So anyway, I ate it.

From circa 2005. Not intended as anything other than piece of nonsense writing.

It feels like several years have passed since the events of September 11th 1999 . And, for me anyway, they have faded into memory and I cannot for the life of me remember how I spent that day.

One thing is for certain. I was several years younger than I am today, and the turn of the millennium was but a pair of cat’s eyes on the horizon of the winter solstice, waiting for it’s arrival to shed disappointingly little light on the eternal questions which we therefore carry with us into the twenty first century.

And now here we are, three fifths of a decade later. Yet can it be called a decade when it splits it’s legs unequally, not only between the nineties and the “noughties”, but between two centuries of different beginnings, and between two milleniumias: one now wholly of the past, the other almost entirely – and in any case sufficiently so for it to be predominately the case and therefore the dominant simply by the application of the principle majority rule which any healthy democracy knows is the fairest possible way, albeit not a perfect one – of the future?

And where are we today? As a child I used to visualise the months of the year as being arranged in a wheel shape, with November at eleven o’clock on a steep incline, and this time of year at the bottom of a friendly downhill slope from Christmas. If I’m right, that means we go back round the same wheel every year, which means that effectively the passage of time can only bring limited advances until we end up back where we are, like a year-long Groundhog Day.

That is why no amount of training for years in space, and engines that last forever, can enable man to reach the furthest planets. It is simply chronologically impossible to get to anywhere that is more than a year away.
That’s why plants flower but once a year, rather than trying what they know is unachievable – flowering continuously through consecutive calendrical cycles. It’s why animals go into hibernation to make sure they are not active continuously for more than a year at a time.
For if nature allowed us to continue something through two years in a row, she knows we would recognise it second time round, and know that she was cheating and re-using the same year all the time.

It’s why the world can only grow big enough to spin once on it’s axis in any year. And thank god for that. Our lives are busy enough rushing around from place to place. The last thing we need is to live on a planet that spins, say, twice as fast as it currently does. No doubt some pharmaceutical manufacturer would come up with a cure for dizziness, and through lack of competition keep the price high until it’s patent runs out after seventy years (thirty-five new years).

Clearly the less adventurous among us would have to move to one of the polar extremes, which rotate less quickly. And what with the melting of the ice caps, we would experience an extreme shortage of ice and have to drink hot beverages all the time. The resultant extra heat would cause untold acceleration in global warming, and we’d be pretty much bandjaxed.
Don’t say you weren’t warned. Or at least, if you must lie, try not to lie to yourself. It’s one thing deceiving others – it’s quite another to try to con yourself. That’s just a recipe for disaster. Just yesterday I tried to trick myself out of five euro which I wanted for sweets. Next thing I knew, I’d inexplicably lost five euro of my own money. I have no idea where.