A HALLOWEEN GHOST STORY

Dear readers I have just ventured home from the baroque metropolis of Lisbon, (the return flight was so turbulent one felt one was in a blender with all the rattling and spew splattering hither and thither.) Exotic Lisboa is a city made fat with pork, salt cod and attractively priced egg based pastries. In 1755 an earthquake struck it's precincts and smashed it to a lumpen mess - and although I have no claim to an expertise in history (and let's be honest, who wants to be associated with a shower of duck-milking historians?) I understand that everyone was killed and the population was replaced by a tribe of Eskimo-Rastafarians who had wandered across the Atlantic pack-ice in search of rancid seal meat and ganja. Three cheers for the Snow-Rastas!

The ruined Cathedral of Carmo  looks hungrily down on modern Lisbon, it's gothic rib-cage naked to the heavens. During the earthquake good Catholics fled into the cathedral in the hope God would be their protection - he collapsed the roof on the lot of them - leaving most Lisboans with the suspicion that He is probably a muslim (I feel they did somewhat miss a beat by not using the opportunity to invade Iraq.)
Carmo Cathederal is now a museum - and it was within it's walls I heard an old married couple bicker:
'Why don't we hold hands anymore?' Said the woman's voice.
'Please dear,' said the man, 'we are in a museum.'
'I hate museums,' said she,' why can't we do something interesting. I hear Big Tom and the Boxcar Nudists are playing a tea-dance at the Casa De Alentejo.'
'You know I can't dance, not with my hips,' said the man.
'Your hips don't stop you dancing all over me at four in the morning do they?' Said she. 'You're worse than Berlusconi on a Bunga Bunga night.'
'Please dear,' he pleaded, 'we are in a museum!!'
'You don't have to remind me,' said she, 'I'm not blind . . .'
Then I rounded the corner and faced the two responsible for the chatter - and discovered why they don't hold hands anymore. . .

Sleep tight dear readers . . .

QUICK AIDAN! TO THE LOBSTERMOBILE!

Aidan O'Sullivan is a man who likes the accoutrements associated with one of his academic status. His belly top, bright pink zoot suit and leopard skin wellies  say everything about his position on the rickety ladder of education.
So it came as little surprise when we were in his saltwater garage and he whipped away an enormous blanket of romaine lettuce to reveal his latest purchase - the new Ford V8 Crustacean.
'What happened to your old Codmobile,' I asked.
'It was getting a bit battered,' he replied (baa-dum-tish.) 'This new baby runs on garlic butter, has a fuel injected omega 3 engine and the ABS anchor comes as standard.'
We then went for a spin, playing Daniel O'Donnell up full blast and shouting expletives at all the barristers wandering the Dublin streets in their wigs, gowns and space hoppers.
On dismounting from the vehicle we both experienced an embarrasing problem . . . a problem which Aidan decided to solve by grinding his nether regions against the wing mirror. 'It's a great car,' he said, 'but be-the-hokey, the upholstery is covered in crabs!'
Call me old-fashioned but I prefer to catch crabs in the traditional fashion (and I don't mean with a pot!)

DIAGNOSTIC MAP OF IRELAND

Feeling a sick as a parrot and short on cash? Why pump a juicy plug of greenbacks into Ireland's festering health system when you can save yourself the mazuma by avoiding the doctor and instead consulting this diagnostic map. Simply look up where you're from and hey presto that's what's wrong with you.
After that, avoid the crystal meth and we'll take it from there.

IRELAND'S PRESIDENTIAL HOPEFULS

As I sat down to pen this missive there was a faint jingling in my ear, TINGATONG it went, TINGATONG. Imagining it to be little more than a fault in my hearing aid (a large brass horn purloined off a gramaphone and attached to my noodle with a roll of barbed wire,) I went about my business and tried to ignore the nettlesome din.

Kim Jong Il was nominated to run for the Irish presidency by both Dino's chipper in Longford and the reformed Lutheran wing of the ICA. Although he feels his track record as a merciless dictator may stand against him he hopes the Irish people will appreciate the way the buttons on his hideous uniform accentuate his nipples.


TINGATONG,TINGATONG, continued the noise. I removed my hearing aid and vigorously dug a crochet hook into my ear until a large blob of earwax encasing a suffocated cockroach fell out. 'Problem solved,' said I with a knowing wink and replaced the aid to my ear. I then picked up a goose quill and returned to the task at hand . . .

Napoleon had a successful political career in France some years ago (perhaps the more seasoned veterans in our midst may still remember his introduction of non-chafing metric onanism,) but his military campaign into Russia was (in the unforgettable words of my Maiden Aunt Lucretia) 'a total fuck-up.' He is hoping the Irish voters will forgive this blip in his past and focus instead on his appalling taste in head gear. He Is also giving away a free creme-anglaise bun with every vote. Oh Boney, you're a fierce man for the pastries!

TINGATONG,TINGATONG, went the noise again. Convinced it was probably something deep within my cranium, I took a surgical grade lump hammer to the bridge of my nose and administered a succession of sharp blows. No cigar, the cacophony (ooh, I've always wanted to use that word,) continued unabated.

The last individual hopeful of a seat in the park is a person with a somewhat . . . ermm  . . . chequered past. Although he accepts he did singlehandedly start the Second World War he hopes Ireland's mature electorate will understand that he did also singlehandedly end it by putting a bullet through his skull while biting down on a cyanide capsule- a trick, (he is at pains to elucidate,) that can not be repeated without a great deal of effort.

TINGATONG,TINGATONG, went the infernal tinnitus. 'Merlin's Beard!' I ejaculated in a manner not unfamiliar to fans of literary drivel. Then all became apparent, there was a tugging on my trouser leg and I looked down to behold nanoarchaeologist Niall Colfer trying to get my attention.

'I want to TING A TONG!!' he said in his squeaking voice.

'Oh you want to sing a song,' I said.

'Yeth,' he peeped, 'and I want to be the predidenth of Ireland and ting tongs to all the boyth and girlth of dith green and pledanth land!!'

'Very well,' said I, slapping my knee, 'Give us an oul tune there me bucko!'

He whipped out a guitar contrived from a walnut shell and a chicken bone and strummed away merrily until he fell through a gap in the floorboards and silence fell upon the land.

Niall Colfer can be seen in the lead role of Peter Jackson's 'The Hobbit' - coming December 2012.