MY CHRISTMAS LIST

Dash it all I'm not out of touch with my feminine side! I like playing with dolls as much as every other square jawed, manly archaeologist. And just to prove it - here's what I've asked dearest Santa to send down my chimney during the Yuletide festivities.

Also on my list is the accessory pack. As every wide shouldered, stubble cheeked archaeologist knows, success in our chosen muddy metier is all about the accessories!

1. High-vis Stella McCartney PPE bikini.
2. Jimmy Choo steel toecaps.
3. Tiger prawn and cucumber sandwiches (cut into ladylike triangles.)
4. Gucci wayfarers.
5. Miu Miu leather bag containing Valentino 4H pencil and Marc Jacobs eraser.
6. Orange Mocha Frappuccino made with civet coffee beans.
7. De Beers Tiara (can't be seen on an excavation without one!)
8. Beaker pot made by an unknown, jumped up Chalcolithic has-been.
9. Crouched Inhumation Ken.


Mind you, if your tastes are a touch more earthy you could do worse than go for the Gimbutas Approved Dolly . . .

Heavens above! I don't know what it is about that ducky Venus figurine but it always makes my loins fruity! Excuse me, but I'm off to satiate myself from within the fortified sanctity of a christian marriage. WOO-HOO!!


Until next time fellow macho archaeological doll collectors - Tooraloora!

BANG BANG BERMINGHAM

It's no secret I got my archaeology degree from Harvey Norman (they were doing a two for one special so I got a Classical Civilisation degree at the same time.) During my thee years queueing to get to the cashier I kept my screaming poverty at bay by working as a shoeshine boy outside the Bank of Ireland. I polished the bankers shoes (made from the skins of flayed infants) with a frothy smile and they repaid me with a kick in the head or else the more understated dog-poo concealed in a crisp packet.

In these sad days of penury a vision arose from the Drimagh dust-bowl, her name was Nora BerMINGham (as in MING the merciless - but not that turf smoking Galway nob - the Flash Gordon one.) She had an armalite in one hand and a bird box in the other (full of Kentucky fried chicken.) Realising I was a fellow  reprobate (I think it was my open-crotched burqa that did it,) she asked if I would be interested in robbing banks to make ends meet. I gladly accepted and we took the 14A to the nearest branch of Anglo Irish Bank (now renamed the Anglo Irish BONK - because they screwed the whole country - what a laugh that was.)

The queue to rob the bank was considerable, so to pass the time we perused the tattoos on our fellow queue mates (one of them had the marine poetry of Jaques Cousteau written on her thighs and armpits - which was ironic because she had to stand like a starfish while we read her.) When we finally reached the counter who should be waiting there but Wee Seanie Fitzpatrick, my old school chum (it's manys the time we were side by side having the backsides whipped off us, with the headmaster wearing welding goggles to protect his eyes from the incandescent glow off our buttocks.)
Seanie was a treasure, he talked us out our foolish bank robbing notions and swopped us the armalite, the burqa and the bird box for shares in Anglo.
Which probably explains why me and Nora are now both bleedin' penniless.

So ladies and gentlemen let us all raise our glasses in honour of Nora Bang Bang Bermingham - a woman whose Tumbeagh Bog Legs Publication reminds me of a joke so filthy I'm even ashamed thinking about it.

FASHION TIPS FOR ARCHAEOLOGISTS No. 6

HATS
Lets face it chums, when it comes to archaeology you're either wearing a hat - or you're not.


It's as simple as that. Or is it? - I'm not sure.


But if you are wearing a hat what does your hat say about you? (And if you're not, go put one on.)

No.1:
I am adventure. I am old school. I am stylish. I am Steven Spielberg's fault.

No.2:
I am Winter. I am warmth. I am comfort. Even though the bobble on this thing stinks of arse.

No.3:

I am Summer. I am shade. I have shag-all self-esteem.

No.4:

I am . . . I am . . . If pot is non-addictive how come I could really, really do with some RIGHT NOW.

No.5:

I am practical. I am resilient. I am a whore of the building industry (and therefore unemployed.)

No.6:

I am experimental. And I made a mistake buying that trepanning saw off ebay.

No.7:

I am in the wrong blog.


Thank you, me and my smurfesque hat models would just like to say: You've been like a herd of giddy camels paddling through a lake of delicious toffee. We love you all. x x x

MODEL KIT

When I was a wee ladeen Mr. Fortifiedbreakfastcereal kept a comely shop on the Terenure mainstreet. He sold all manner of things to bewitch the impressionable mind of a young gassune. In his shop window he had statues of the Blessed Virgin lovingly sculpted from freeze dried offal and flashing neon - beside these sat Pope Pius XII memorial plaques imaginatively fashioned from horses' teeth and shattered hurley sticks - but among all these eyecatching beauties there was a stack of model kits retailing at a ha'porth an ounce.
My primary school friends and I would spend hours, noses pressed against the shop window, staring at these boxes containing plastic wonders. We would stare at them until our snot glued us to the window and the fire brigade was called to crowbar us off.
Childhood chum Shaunie Fitzpatrick, (many moons before his dizzying success in the banking sector) was particularily taken by the 'Looting Bastard' model kit (when assembled it featured an overweight posse of businessmen dumping a golden calf into a bottomless pit - I still don't understand what it was about.) My other pal Daniel O'Donnell, (in the days when he hadn't a frog in his trousers nor an arse in his throat) couldn't take his eyes off the 'Elvis Presley Invading Poland' model kit (I often wonder about the historical accuracy of that one.) And what kit caught my eye?


Well don't pretend you haven't already guessed . . .

PARTS LIST:
1. Head -supplied empty, feel free to stuff with arrogance and loony theories.
2. Hat -makes him look like Bungo from the Wombles.
3. Beard -adds to the overall womblesque appearance.
4. Ponytail -optional, for more of a 'My Little Pony' look.
5. Trowel Arm -for scratching at soil.
6. Other Arm -for scratching at hole.
7. Torso -and lavish beer gut.
8. Man Boobs -big enough to smother a sparrow.
9. Wages -a bag of peanuts.
10. Left leg -arthritic.
11. Right Leg - gammy.
12. Feet -clad in recession style plastic bags.
13. Loins -when painting model don't forget to add greasy stains.
14. Plumb bob -and SpongeBob.
15. Excavation licence.
16. Psychiatric evaluation.
17. Pencil - for buttering sandwiches and picking ears and teeth.
18. Sense of propriety - sadly missing.

TRICK OR TREAT FIELD REPORT 2011

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I had agreed to meet my usual gang of trick or treat chums for our yearly trawl through the neighbourhood in search of tooth rotting delights. My costume had taken some time to prepare and was a post-post-postmodern take on satire in the media and it's venal relationship with religious postcards circa 1952 - in short - I had a paper bag on my head.
Boy racer Aidan O Sullivan arrived at our rendezvous point pushing an empty child's buggy.
'What are you dressed as?' I asked politely.
Aidan shook his head in a disappointed way, 'I know you're not the sharpest twig in the wood report,' he sighed, 'so I'll make this easy for you - I'm pushing a buggy AND I go WOOOO, Woooo, WOOOO in the darkness AND I scare naughty children.'
'Still haven't a clue old bean,' I said.
'I'm the Buggy Man! Isn't it obvious?'
Cathy Moore's timely arrival broke the clanging silence. She was dressed as everybody's-favourite-communist-next-door, Fidel Castro.
'Great fake beard,' observed Aidan.
'Oh it's not fake,' said Cathy drawing deeply on her cigar. 'It's a side effect from working with Alan Hayden for too long.'
'Yes, I had to have mine surgically removed,' I added sympathetically.

Moments later Conor McDermott appeared dressed, as per usual, as a pumpkin. (I've heard he never takes the costume off- wears it underneath his clothes throughout the year.)
'Who's your friend?' I asked waving at the dark masked figure behind him.
'No idea, he just followed me here,' said Conor. The individual had an ominous air about him so I decided not to enquire about his motives and merely signalled to my playfellows that we should begin the evening's bonhomie and hilarity.

After six hours of dragging our festooned carcasses around the doorsteps of Terenure, Conor McD. held out our combined evenings takings - two monkey nuts and a minature tube of toothpaste (the type dentists give out for free.) We were, unsurprsingly, steaming with rage - when, without warning, a figure with with a riding crop, plus fours and a leather mask leapt out at us!
Conor screamed, causing the minature tube and nuts to fall out of his grip (ooh err.)
'Fear not,' said the becostumed person, 'It's only me, Sir Edward of Bourke - here to bring you seasonal tidings.'

'Wow!' said Cathy looking at the bulging bag by Ed's side. 'You look like you've cleaned up on the goodies, what's your secret?'
'It's my careful choice of words when I address the householder,' said Ed (his dainty voice only slightly muffled by the zip across his mouth.) 'When I arrive at a doorstep I don't use that tired old "trick or treat" chestnut. It's so 1979.'
'Oh, what do you say?' Asked Aidan conspiratorially.
'I say,' whispered Ed, 'Give me sweets or I will take a shit on your lawn!'
'And that works??!' Said Conor McD aghast.
'No, not at all, that's why I have to carry this huge sack of jobbies around with me, I wouldn't have the bowel capacity to do a dump on everyone's lawns around here, so I've been saving my shit all year for this night.'
And he then skipped away merry as grig, with his odorous sack, to deliver more treats onto the unsuspecting lawns of Terenure.

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Thank you for your attention and now we resume our narrative:

We then returned to look at our stash of loot when horror of horrors! Someone had eaten the whole minature tube of toothpaste AND both of the monkey nuts!!
'We've been plundered!' Roared Conor McD.

Looking about we realised the dark mystery guest had disappeared . . . (cue dramatic music.)
'Who the hell was that thieving sod?' Cried Aidan.
'Well Muchacos,' said Cathy Moore, with a knowing puff of her cheroot, 'It's elementary isn't it?'
We looked at each other in a confused way.
'Consider his black clothing,' said Cathy, 'His only words of the night - "I am your Father . . ." and his heavy breathing.'
'Oh jeepers,' I said.
'A paedophile priest!' Said Aidan, his face turning white.
'Oh Jinkies, oh Jinkies no! I'm going to sick up!' Squeaked Conor McD.
'What's wrong?' Asked Cathy.
'He kept making me hold his light saber!!' Said Conor as he ralphed a technicolour yawn. AND THAT dear readers, was how we discovered who had really eaten the toothpaste and monkey nuts!!

UNTIL NEXT TIME MUCHACHOS