Neal’s Belch no. 175 for 20th Nov, 2004

I’ve been toying with the idea of giving up alcohol permanently, and substituting it with sweets or something. I find that I’m becoming addicted to it’s medicinal qualities, and rarely does a week go by when I don’t “accidentally” get a bruise on my knee, and dab it with an alcohol soaked squab to disinfect it.

Experts believe that there is a particular pore behind our knees which, when exposed to sunlight, can lead to us feeling happier. This is unfortunate for me, because the last thing my knees need when they’re hung over, is the sun shining down on them.

I’ve always found, though, that alcohol makes me happy. It may be because beer cans here in Ireland come with a Dilbert comic printed on them, or it may be that I’m a raving alcoholic. Either way, I’ve finally come to the conclusion that it’s time to grasp the bull by the steering-wheel, admit that I have a problem, and go to AA Ireland and ask them whether they’ll reduce my motor insurance premium if I stop drinking.

The Automobile Association has always been a fine refuge for those of who like to drink. Before I finally collapse for the night, I always make sure to fall into a car that has an “AA Member” sticker on the windscreen. For one thing, I love the yellow and black logo. And it may interest you to know that I’ve deleted a rather poor bit here about a Russian cartoon that used to be shown on Irish television in the nineteen eighties. But besides that, it’s always lovely when I wake up with a massive headache, and all I have to do is call up a mechanic to fix the window that somehow got broken during the night.

He usually turns up within half and hour and brings tea and doughnuts, so that’s breakfast taken care of. I’ve thought about asking them to bring a change of clothing too, but recently I’ve found that if I just concentrate, I can aim the other way and I don’t get any vomit on them at all usually.

It’s very important, when reclaiming your body from alcohol and becoming a teetotaller that you cleanse out your body by having plenty of fruits and juices and healthy crap like that. For that reason, I’ve taken to drinking a lot of apple juice.

Well I did, that is, until last night, when there was a documentary on the Discovery Channel about fruit juices. I didn’t see it, but it was in the TV listings, and apparently it said that apple juice is pretty much the same as cider. Since cider comes in larger cans than traditional apple juice, I’ve decide to switch to cider. That way I’ll get even more apple juice into my system, and it won’t be long until I’m permanently “dry”.

I’ve always been a great admirer of the Discovery Channel, ever since I discovered it. There is now nothing that I don’t know about how zebras fuck each other in the wilderness. And my life is all the better and richer for it. I’ve learned an awful lot from these programmes, and have put much of it into practice. Yesterday I took a little trip to the zoo on the way home, and had a great time. They sell lovely ice-cream there, too.

That reminds me. Many of you probably have probably always assumed that ducks don’t care if there’s a huge Noah-style flood. This is rather shortsighted of you. When the water level rises to the highest mountaintops, as it did in biblical times, the ducks have to swim at a much higher altitude than normal, unless they manage to get their hands on some stand-by tickets for a passing ark.

Obviously during Noah’s kick ass biblical flood, oxygen tanks were at a premium, but Noah had to supply them to every duck on the planet. Otherwise, what you would have had was an ark with hundreds of ducks swimming around beside it, quacking sarcastically and making Noah look ridiculous, by implying that they were managing to survive without any help from him whatsoever. At least if he supplied the oxygen tanks Noah could take credit for their ongoing good health, and not look like an idiot.

Obviously this ate into Noah’s costs quite a bit. He cut back by not having any cats on board. As a result, all of the cats which we have in the world today are completely free of sin, as they are all descended from cats who were born after the flood, which according to the bible was sent to kill off all the evil cats in the world.

That’s why cats are always licking themselves, by the way. They were born at a time when there was still a lot of dampness around after the flood, and so they are not used to being dry, and have to cover themselves with saliva to make themselves feel normal. For the same reason, cats are very uncomfortable with the idea of using anti-perspirants. They just can’t stand being dry.

Till Wednesday, I’m Neal for IllitPress of Canada, and I’m seriously thinking of getting a cat.

Neal’s Belch no. 173 for Nov 14th, 2004

I’ve always had a problem with the popular music artist, Sting. It’s nothing to do with the fact that he’s a former teacher, who should be able to articulate himself with more sophisticated sentences that “De do do do de da da da”. No, I’m fine with that. Even though my spell-checker hates it.

If artists feel the need to express themselves using media other than the language which their parents and teachers have worked hard to instil in them since childbirth, then I suppose they must be allowed to do so.

After all, this is a free world, and those of us who wish to stray from the herd of sheep and hang out with one of the local badgers for a while, should be permitted to do so. Besides, I’ve always thought that sheep and badgers look good together. And I’m not suggesting that the two should necessarily mate. There’s more to life than sex, you know. Some of us realise that you can get almost as much enjoyment out of having a chat with a badger while leaning on the gate at the end of the field, as you can from an orgasm. And that brings me to my difficulty with Sting.

For several years now, that man has, according to the tabloid press, been a proponent of the pastime known as tantric sex. For those who are too young and innocent and stupid to know what that means, it involves going to a cinema with a nice person, and making the popcorn last all the way through the first half of Lawrence of Arabia, the twenty minute interval, and possibly the second part of the movie too.

The trouble with this is that Sting is so named because, as a child, he wore a yellow and black striped article of clothing, and looked like a bee.

Now bees, as you know, die after they sting you. They are not able to make themselves last a long time, and if Sting really had the characteristics of a bee, he would be a lot more likely to concentrate on the movie. He would most likely decline the aforementioned snack food.

As would I, but in my case it would be on health grounds. I’ve never liked popcorn much myself. I don’t care much for the taste, it’s full of cholesterol, albeit good cholesterol.

By the way I’ve always been most impressed at the way scientists, to avoid having to invent a new word, just called it “good” cholesterol. I think the same principle could be applied by parents who want to name their children Hitler.

Up to now, this has always been a problem, as the name carries with it a lot of baggage. But under this system the child could be called Good Hitler on the birth certificate, and just Hitler for short. Then everybody would be able to tell the difference between the long deceased war mongering dictator, and Junior.

Many of you may not be aware that I used to work as a secretary to a war mongering former dictator. I too am unaware of this.

As far as I’m concerned, it is a vicious rumour made up by myself in order to fill up a paragraph in an article, after I ran out of things to say about tantric popcorn. Although admittedly I am able to touch-type, and would be well qualified to assume such a role.

However, in my day having good keyboard skills did not amount to a crime against humanity.

Apparently it does now. I only recently found out that the reason why the United States refused to sign up to the international war crimes convention a couple of years ago, was because the President was under immense pressure from the Secretarial Guild of North America, who were afraid that administrative assistants all over the world would be arrested and brought before a court in Switzerland or something.

Anyway till Wednesday, I’m Neal from MatchstickCats.com and IllitPress, and my fingers know the layout of my keyboard like the back of their hands.

Circa 2004

Somewhere in another time and place, over a rainbow far away and beyond anywhere that even the intricate human mind is equipped to take us, two cats walk into a bar.

One of the cats immediately orders a pint of Guinness, then sets about turning the creamy head with a spoon, hoping that it will metamorphisise into cheese. Not the type to ever relax and forget about work, he’s trying to create some cheese to use back at the laboratory, where the mice that he experiments on from nine to five, are getting hungry. He’s not planning to feed them. It’s just that he wants to wave some cheese over their cages and see what happens, all in the interests of science, and the advancement of the human race.

By using the phrase “human race”, I have of course given it all away.

It is now clear to you that the fictional cat, to whom I allocate human characteristics, is in fact a human. It’s a metaphor. An artistic indulgence, if you will, created to add colour and life to this otherwise dull story of mice and cheesecakes.

The other cat is not a drinker, so he orders a couple of slices of whiskey cake. While looking at the menu, he notices that they serve cheese cake, and he thinks about telling the other cat but by the time the thought processes have made their way around his unsophisticated brain, the alcohol fumes from the nearby whiskey cake have taken their toll, and our cat number two is out for the night.

Meanwhile, outside, their friend is standing looking irritated, and wondering why he always has to be the reserve cat in these stories. He seriously considers starting a campaign to ban pubs from restricting cats to two at a time, but after a few minutes he finds a ball of string on the ground, and spends the evening playing with that instead.

And that brings me to my point. It has always, always been a source of bafflement to me, how they manage to make string so long. I have never seen a sheep with a sixty metre hair on his back. And believe me, I should know.

In the early nineteen eighties I worked for the Irish Secret Service, and my job was to try to find out why Hollywood insists on making films with leprechauns in them. My research, of course, brought me on the trail of a fairy ring, in a mountainous area populated by sheep farms and terrorist hideouts. Leprechauns, as you’ll know doubt know, only appear in spaces of between two and seven feet in width, and in cheap Hollywood movies aimed at people whose great grandmother once accidentally visited Ireland and thought she was born there.

So in each area that I visited, I would calculate the average distance between the sheep as they grazed, and try to determine whether a two to seven foot open space existed between them at most times.

Anyway, since I seem to be a little short of further things to say today, how about a little of what we all know you people come here for. Poetry.

I wandered lonely as a wasp
That floats on high o’er veils and hills
And gets spotted by a wasp hunter
Who lifts his gun, takes aim and kills

I strolled and pondered why we’re here
And clocked up several hours of thinking
Eventually my mind did clear
And into logic I did peer

Clear as a bell it all became
My doubts they did begin to wane
Just in case, I reconsidered
But clarity was still unhindered

It’s obvious it seemed to me
A lower species we must be
Otherwise why would we begat
Eight lives less than the humble cat?

Cultured readers can find a whole page of fine poetry here.