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.